


The November Chronicles

by ariannenymerosmartell (somethingmoo)



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, F/M, Minor Character Death, Multi, Pre-Series, R plus L equals J, Robert's Rebellion, TWOIAF, TWOW spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-02
Updated: 2014-11-30
Packaged: 2018-02-23 20:11:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 30
Words: 21,687
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2554076
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/somethingmoo/pseuds/ariannenymerosmartell
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A drabble every day for the month of November. Tags, pairings, and warnings to be updated as this goes on.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Yesterday You Were Here with Me

**Author's Note:**

> 11/01. Steffon Baratheon-- "Yesterday You Were Here with Me"

His father dies in his arms, in the midst of a battle, as men scream and steel sings all around them. His father dies in his arms, and later men will tell him that they will make a song of it: the brave Hand, who died to protect their king; the brave Hand who died in his son's arms.

But his father dies in his _arms_ , and leaves him alone in the world. Alone but for the men from the Stormlands that he's supposed to lead now, through a war for a crown he does not care about, a war for petty kings and petty kingdoms that he _cannot_ care about because his father died in  _his_ arms, and no one seems to understand that.

Aerys and Tywin certainly don't-- neither one of them are fond of their fathers. Neither one of their fathers is fighting in this war. Lord Tytos is too infirm, and King Jaehaerys is King, and his father tells him that it is the Hand's _duty_ to counsel the King, and his father commands the great host to battle these Ninepenny Kings to protect _his_ King. But his father, the brave, strong Hand _dies_ in his arms, and Aerys and Tywin still have their fathers. Their old, infirm, sickly fathers, and Steffon is left alone.

Aerys tells him that his father will be honored, that the name Baratheon has forever been etched in glory, that Targaryen and Baratheon will always be _brothers_ , but then shouldn't Aerys be mourning too? If Aerys was his brother, surely, _surely_ , he'd understands...but Aerys doesn't. No one does. Because his father died in his arms, his life's blood staining his hands red, _Targaryen red_ , the same shade of the gowns his mother used to wear when she visited court. The same color of Tywin's cloak, the one that streamed from his back when he knighted Aerys for his valor in battle.

He'd been knighted too. His father had knighted him before the first battle, naming him Ser Steffon Baratheon, heir to Storm's End. He'd been Ser Steffon Baratheon for all of three hours before his father died in his arms and he was Lord Baratheon, and so the men called him, but it's not _right._

His father is Lord Baratheon, Hand of the King, but his father died. In his arms. And Aerys and Tywin hate their father's and it isn't _fair_ because they don't understand.

They don't understand what it was like to love your father. To learn how to ride with him by your side, to train with sword, and lance, and morningstar with him as your opponent. They never spent nights in their father's solar, with mead and mutton and laughter and joy.

They covet their father's seats, their thrones and their titles, but Steffon would gladly trade all of that, _gladly_ never be a lord, or a _ser_ even, if it meant that his father wouldn't have to die in his arms.

It is Ser Gerold Hightower, the new Lord Commander, and the new battle commander who places a gentle, but firm hand on his shoulder and reminds him of his father's words. _His words_.

His father dies in his arms and he will not let that be in vain. He will cut down these Ninepenny Kings until his sword drips blood, until these pretenders are vanquished. Were it not for them...

They will feel _his_ fury.


	2. By Any Other Name

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 11/02. Jon Connington-- "By Any Other Name"
> 
> This drabble is set in the same universe as [this](http://ariannenymerosmartell.tumblr.com/post/92112353489/he-is-growing-to-look-much-like-his-father#notes) one. It focuses on the entirely crack concept of Jon Connington and Aegon getting to the wall and meeting Jon Snow. [celiatully](http://tmblr.co/mCjUZC6Wsx4JopzF3nSKCew) is the most responsible for what is ahead. And blame the person who read the original drabble on Ao3 and told me to write a follow up.

They call the boy Lord Snow. Some say it loyally, respectfully. Others snidely, crudely. The title is an insult and an honor both, but the boy wears it well.

_As Rhaegar would have_ , Jon Connington thinks to himself. _The boy has more of his father than he knows_.

And yet, when Jon thinks of the boy's true name _Jon Snow_ , he cannot help but feel it wrong in his mind and on his tongue. _His_ name is Jon, and while he would love to lose himself in the fancy that Rhaegar had named his child for him, he doubts Rhaegar even knew of the boy's existence.

And certainly _Lyanna_ _Stark_ would not have named the child for him. Lyanna did not know him. Lyanna would have named the babe for the brother she loved best, the brother who died, _Brandon._

But his name is Jon, and that can only have come from Eddard Stark, honoring his foster father through the boy he'd claimed as his bastard for so many years.

_But he is not a bastard_ , Jon thinks as he hears some of the black brothers mutter, whenever Lord Snow gives a command they do not like. Lord Snow merely tries to save them, to protect the realm, but the men do not see. They have given up hope, have resigned themselves to death, resent Lord Snow for his unwavering dedication to his vows. 

Jon admires the boy for the way he shoulders their disapproval, another burden, albeit a small one, to rest on his shoulders. And though he is as lithe and toned as Rhaegar had been, Lord Snow shoulders each and every burden well.

Sometimes, when Jon cannot sleep at the wall, when it is too cold, and his fingers too stiff, and he stares at the grey skin, coloring his knuckles, he tries to imagine what Rhaegar would have named the boy had he lived, and had he known _._ Lyanna would have wanted Brandon, he is sure of that, but _Brandon Targaryen_ would just have been silly, and Rhaegar would have made her see sense.

He wracks his brain, and thinks _Daeron_ , mayhaps, for Daeron the Good, because surely Rhaegar would have wanted his son to be good. But then Jon remembers that Daeron had taken a Dornish Princess to wife, had given his sister to Dorne. Rhaegar would not have insulted Princess Elia that way, to name another son-- a son that wasn't hers-- a name so closely tied to her motherland.

_And there weren't a great many songs about Daeron, even in his goodness_. Jon remembers. Rhaegar would have wanted his son to have a name from a song.

Sometimes he thinks they might have chosen _Orys_ for the Conqueror's famed half-brother, his wise Hand who had given him good counsel and helped him win his Kingdom. But Orys had been a _Baratheon_ , and even if Rhaegar had won, it would have been unwise to name a babe after a Baratheon.

And though there were a great many songs about Orys, Lyanna might not have taken kindly to naming her child for a Baratheon whom she'd run away from.

And life had not been a song for the boy. Raised as a bastard, sent to the Night's Watch, fighting the very cold itself. Life had not been a song for the boy, and he bore it well enough, save for his eyes, his _grey_ eyes, so much older than his sixteen years.

"Being Lord Snow has aged me," the boy had japed one evening as they sat in his solar and poured over legends and lore of the Others, looking for some way to quell the rising tides of the undead. "My father did tell me the life of a bastard on the Wall would be no easy thing."

_But you are not a bastard!_ Jon thinks, angry at the title, angry at distinction Westeros made between naturalborn and trueborn, as if naturalborn children could not be good, and as if trueborn children could never be evil. _And he is not your father_.

_Gregor Clegane_ _was trueborn_ , Jon thinks, wincing for the end Princess Elia met. _I'd rather have a thousand bastards than one Clegane_.

But even if Lord Snow were a bastard, he'd be Jon _Sand_ not Snow. He would have been born in the Red Mountains of Dorne, not in the cold, snowy North.

_He'd be Jon Blackfyre_   _in truth,_ Jon thinks to himself one morning as he watches Lord Snow train with the men in the yard. He wields Longclaw like he was born to it; his movements are neat, and precise, and deadly. Some of the more bitter men mutter this is a bastard sword for a bastard commander, and others argue that he has no right to the Valyrian steel. _He's not Mormont's son_ , someone muttered and Jon had resisted rolling his eyes, but just barely. 

_A Valyrian sword for a bastard_ , Jon thinks. _Daemon Blackfyre_ _then_. _Lord Snow would be Daemon Blackfyre._

But even that sounds wrong, because Rhaegar would not have sired a bastard on the Stark girl. He would have wed her, taken her as a second wife, as the Targaryens and Valyrians of old. His children by her would have been _trueborn_ , Princes and Princesses of the blood, noble, and royal and wise, and fair, just as Rhaegar himself had been.

_Just as Lord Snow is_ , Jon thinks with a touch of pride. _Just as Aegon is_. And Jon frowns then because should Lord Snow be a _Daemon_ _Blackfyre_ , it does not bode well for his relationship with Aegon _. And thus far the two have been naught but courteous._

Both men were raised to respect and honor those around them, and they treated each other with that same respect, though the warmth--the warmth of brother-- was not there. 

_Because they do not know_ , Jon thinks often, feeling anguish over the decision to keep the truth from them both. _Because I have no proof._

Jon battles himself over this often. He longs to tell the boy the truth of his parents-- longs to tell him that he is a _Prince_ the rightful Prince of Dragonstone, Aegon's heir till he should produce children of his own. _But he has no proof_ , and saying _you have your father's eyes_ will not work, not when Lord Snow's eyes are grey, grey, _grey_ like his mother's and his _uncle's._

_Not when I already champion one Targaryen thought to be long dead_ , Jon thinks grimly, not deaf to the whispers that plague him and Aegon _._ _To produce another none knew existed... that would be too much_.

Who would support Aegon's claim if people thought Jon was just naming any young boys of doubtful parentage as Targaryen _._ None would flock to Aegon's banner, none would see him crowned king.

_But they are brothers, and Princes both_ , Jon thinks, and is suddenly startled to find that Aegon has joined Jon in the training yard, and that the two are fighting-- with tourney swords, at least-- each blow, each movement, each breath even more graceful than the last.

_Don't they see?_ Jon wonders of the other men staring down at them _._ _Don't they see that they are brothers? Rhaegar's seed, the blood of the Dragon_?

Jon Snow knocks Aegon down then, and Aegon yields, laughing. The boy extends a hand and pulls Aegon up to his feet, and Aegon clasps his shoulder in gratitude. The boy just nods thoughtfully-- no gloating, no japes-- and gives only a small smile in acknowledgement of his victory.

_Humble, wise, kind, and a warrior,_ Jon thinks, nodding in approval. And then it hits him.

_Aemon_. _He would have been an Aemon_.

There were many songs about the Dragonknight. Many songs about his chivalry, and bravery. About his love for his brother, and his unquestionable loyalty to his vows.

_He would have been Aemon Targaryen,_ Jon thinks wonderingly, and with a pang remembers that there had been another Aemon Targaryen at the wall.

Jon wonders if he knew. If Maester Aemon Targaryen had sensed that there was another Dragon at the wall, that Rhaegar's son was under his tutelage. _That his namesake was near_.

_Aemon_ , Jon thinks with a smile, as he looks at the boy with Rhaegar's eyes and Rhaegar's melancholy, and Rhaegar's strength.

His Aegon and the boy-- _Aemon_ , he tell himself-- are in the yard taking, and Jon feels his heart pounding in his chest. _The Conqueror, and the Dragonknight come again_ , Jon thinks, but that doesn't seem right either.

_Mayhaps the singers will name them the Unlikeliest and the Snow Dragon_.

Jon almost laughs to himself. He'd leave the names for the singers. In front of him, and with him, he has Aegon and Aemon Targaryen, and together they will stop the Long Night, these _Princes_ who were promised.

_I have your sons,_ _Rhaegar_ , Jon prays. _Do you see?_


	3. Blood and Storm

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 11/03. Rhaelle Targaryen-- "Blood and Storm"

_It's not fair_.

She repeats the mantra in her head, over, and over, and over again.

 _It's not fair_.

Duncan gets to marry for love, gets to cast aside a crown, gets to disappoint Father and the realm, and _still_ the singers make songs for him and Jenny. They sing of true love and romance and chivalry, and Jenny,  _Lady Jenny_ her father insists, as a courtesy, invites every singer in to play and sing, and subject them all to their sickening love. 

Rhaelle wishes she could burn them all.

Her father's heir disappoints the realm, and _she_ suffers the consequences.

Duncan leaves his crown for his peasant girl, and Jaehaerys and Shaera sneak off and marry, and Daeron simply wheedles his way out of his betrothal, but she is sold to the Baratheons as a consolation prize that no one wanted. That no one loved.

"Do I not get to follow my heart?" Rhaelle screams at her father, when her betrothal is announced, not caring that her siblings are still assembled in her solar. Duncan and Jenny are unaffected, but Jaeherys and Shaera exchange guilty looks, and Daeron's eyes are full of pity.

"Am I to be the least of your children, always? Least loved, least wanted?" Rhaelle knows she's bordering on hysterics, but she does not care. She is a _dragon_ , a true one, and she will not be denied her wrath.

"Shall I cast aside my crown? Denounce my title as a Princess of the blood? Mayhaps then you'd love me. Mayhaps then Lord Commander Duncan will leap to my defense and battle in my honor and save me from a betrothal I do not want."

Her father winces, and the pained expression on his face, and on Lord Duncan's face almost gives her pause, but she barrels on.

"Come, Daeron. Let us run to the Sept and marry. Let us sneak away and defy father and the realm and marry!" She levels her gaze at Jaeherys and his new bride, and is proud to see the tears glimmering in their eyes.

 _Good_ , she thinks _. Let them suffer as I do._

Shaera reaches a hand out to her, but Rhaelle bats it away sharply, rounding on Daeron now.

"No, brother? Will you not wed me? No, I thought not. You don't love me either."

In Daeron's face she finds a surprising amount of pain.

"I would wed you if I could, sister," he says solemnly, so solemnly, that Rhaelle almost forgets her anger, and almost throws herself into his arms, but she remembers herself and her rage.

"Then why don't you," she wails, sinking to her knees in front of father.

"Father, _please_ ," she begs, clasping her hands as if in prayer. _I am in prayer_ , she thinks wildly. _And m_ _y father is my King, is my god._

But the man who looks down on her is not a god. He's not even her father then. He is King Aegon V, the unlikeliest king, and his ears are deaf to her pleas and her pain. 

"It is for the good of the realm, Rhaelle," he says, but his voice is barely a whisper, as though he cannot bear to say what he does. "And the Baratheons have always been our friends. Our kin."

"Then I hope that ends," Rhaelle says savagely, with every ounce of hate and anger she can muster. "I hope this spells the end of that kinship. I hope I am not the consolation prize they wanted."

"Rhaelle, you are not--" King Aegon begins, but she cuts him off.

"Leave it, Your Grace," she says, and her father, _her King_ , looks wounded at the use of his title. "It is done. I will marry Ormund Baratheon and fix what Duncan and Jenny, and Jaeherys and Shaera, and Daeron have broken. I will do what none of your other children can, and I pray that you all remember that. Little Rhaelle saved the realm that you all broke."

She gives them all one last glare, and spins on her heel to leave the room. She pauses at the doors, with her back to them, and takes a deep breath, gathering her courage for her next words. 

"Besides," she begins, willing her voice not to crack or shake. "With this marriage, I'll finally get my heart's deepest desire."

"Rhaelle," her father begins, as though he can sense what she will say. From the corner of her eye, she can see Lord Duncan and the deep frown and distraught expression he wears.

It doesn't matter anymore. She finishes her statement.

"I won't be a Targaryen for a moment longer."


	4. Heroes Come the Common Way

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 11/04. Mikken; Jon Snow--"Heroes Come the Common Way"

He had not expected the boy to visit his forge, not with just a fortnight until everyone departs, but he finds himself pleased nonetheless.

Mikken had spent what felt like half his life chasing Starks from his forge. First as a teenager, chasing Winterfell's heir and the She-Wolf, as they'd been called, away from his father's work.

As an adult, as Winterfell's smith, he'd chased Lord Eddard's heir away more times than he could count. The little lordling was forever pestering him to make another sword like Ice-- something he could have once he came of age-- something he would wear proudly until he were Lord of Winterfell in truth, and would have Ice for his own. He supposes he'll have to make something for him soon, after Lord Eddard went South, and the boy was in Winterfell, truly training to be its Lord.

Worse was the girl-- the She-Wolf come again-- with her hair as tangled as a bird's nest, and her eyes as grey as a winter's storm. Lord Eddard's little girl was forever begging him to make a sword for her, just as her aunt had begged of his father decades before.  She amused Mikken though, with her half-truths about swords and steel and chivalry. He'd lost count of the number of times she'd escaped her Septa and had hidden in his forge, sitting on table and watching him hammer steel, begging him for a blade of her own.

The boy though-- he was the best. He came in, silent as a shadow, and simply watched him work. He never asked for a blade, never questioned anything. Just sat and watched. It occurred to him once that he could ask the boy if he wanted to become his apprentice. A bastard could do much worse than becoming apprentice to a master smith of a great house, after all, but Mikken has no experiences with bastards _of_ the great house. Especially not a bastard who looks more like a Stark than any of the heirs.

Of all of the Stark children, though he knows Lady Catelyn does not like to think of this one as a Stark, Jon is his favorite.

The boy has Lord Brandon's mischief in his eyes, locked in Lord Eddard's solemn face. There is some of little Benjen in him, especially when he laughs, and his smile is all Lyanna's. The boy is a Stark through and through, and sometimes when he and the little girl come into the forge together, Mikken can pretend he is a teenager again, with Lord Brandon and Lady Lyanna discussing swords and tourneys and dreams of the future.

But the boy comes in, and greets him with Lyanna's smile, and says, "Mikken, I need a favor," with all of Lord Eddard's seriousness and more than a little of Lord Brandon's mischief.

"I wouldn't take a new sword with me to the Wall," Mikken tells him, easily guessing the reason for his visit. He still thinks sending the boy to the Wall is a waste, but it is not his place to question his Lord.

He can imagine why the boy would want to bring new castle-forged steel to the Wall though. He's sure the boy thinks to impress his new brothers, but Mikken knows the hardened men of the Wall will not take kindly to a young boy, raised soft in a castle, showing off new steel.

"It's not for me," Jon says quickly, looking a little sheepish. "It would be a gift."

"For your brother?" Mikken prompts, thinking Jon might be seeking to leave a parting gift for Robb-- a sword to remember him by. But, Jon shakes his head and a blush covers his cheeks.

"It's stupid," Jon says, with a small grimace, "but I'd... would it be possible to make a small sword. Like for a small person?"

Mikken raises his eyebrows. "Presents for the Imp?"

Jon splutters and turns a brilliant shade of red.

"It's for Arya," he says, and winces as if waiting for Mikken to yell at him.

Mikken laughs instead.

"A little blade, for a little twig of a girl, eh?" He says, but his heart warms at the thought. "Do you think she knows how to use it."

"I'm sure can figure out which end goes where," Jon says, smiling in truth now, relieved. "But... I don't think anyone else should know. Lady Catelyn wouldn't approve and I wouldn't want you or Arya to get in trouble."

Mikken is struck by two things; Jon's disregard for himself and his desire to keep others safe, and by the memory of Lord Brandon asking to have a dagger made for Lady Lyanna.

 _"Father will not let her have a sword,"_ Lord Brandon had said. _"But perhaps a dagger as a present will make her happier about her betrothal. Or give her cause to stick Robert Baratheon like a boar."_

Mikken almost says no, remembering Lord Brandon and Lady Lyanna's ends. He almost tells the boy not the join the Night's Watch, not to ride away, to stay and keep his little sister with him.

He doesn't though. He just nods.

And Jon smiles, _Lady Lyanna's smile_.

"I was thinking something small, and skinny, like her," Jon says. "Like a needle."


	5. Heart of the Matter

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 11/05. Visenya Targaryen-- "Heart of the Matter."

She and Aegon are fighting when the raven brings them word.

_Dark wings, dark words._

Aegon reads the missive slowly, letting every word sink in, and when he gets to the bottom he reads it over again. After a long while, he looks up and gazes at her as though he is seeing her anew. In that moment he is not King Aegon the Conqueror-- he is her little brother, the rambunctious little boy she chased 'round and 'round on Dragonstone for hours at at time. She remembers the little boy whose wounds she dressed, before he became too proud to let his sister see him hurt. She remembers, just briefly, the little boy who looked to his big sister for comfort.

Before Rhaenys, that is.

Visenya had been his constant companion until Rhaenys's birth, when Aegon had discovered that he preferred being a big brother to a little one. Preferred laughing with his sweet-tempered little sister, than being beaten at races by his stern older one. It was Rhaenys he sought out when he wanted comfort, when he wanted laughter, when he wanted passion, when he wanted love.

He only sought out Visenya when he was in a rage.

But Aegon, her little brother, is looking to her for comfort now. His violet eyes are wide, and over bright, and he looks so lost it baffles her.

And then, just as quickly as the look appeared, it is gone. He thrusts the missive at her and walks quickly from the room, though his shoulders are hunched and stooped, as though he has rapidly aged, right before her eyes.

She lets her eye scan over the words, written in black maester's ink once, twice, _three_ times before she realizes that she'd stopped breathing.

Because the words written down, words in High Valyrian, words in the tongue she had read and spoken nearly her whole life, the words don't make sense at all.

Because dragons don't just _die_. They live to be ridiculous ages, and they lay more eggs than any family knows what to do with. They age, and grow slow and tired. but they don't just _die_. It takes the blackest sorcery to bring down a dragon. They aren't felled by crossbow bolts.

And Rhaenys would never just _fall_ from Meraxes. She flew better than any of them, swifter and surer, even in the worst of storms. She wouldn't have fallen. She couldn't have fallen.

  
_Dragons don't die_.

She thinks about Rhaenys as she had last seen her, mounting Meraxes, laughing haughtily.

"I will bring these Dornish to heel, sister," she had said, and even through her laughter, Visenya could hear her wounded pride. Rhaenys had never forgiven her for bringing the Vale down so easily, whilst she had been laughed out of Dorne.

And Visenya had begged her not to go. Not alone. To wait, to stay. All three of them would go, and unleash another Field of Fire, and give the Dornish a true taste of _fire and blood_.

But for all the ways they differed, they shared the same willful stubbornness, the same angry pride, and Rhaenys had flown off, and Rhaenys...

She thinks of Rhaenys as a babe, beautiful even then, with all that delicate beauty Visenya lacked. Even as a babe, Rhaenys had been more smiles and gurgling laughter than tears, genial and happy. Everyone had loved her, showered her with attention and affection, and for moons Visenya had burned with envy.

  
_My hair is silver too,_ she'd think to herself. _And my eyes are just as purple_.

But Visenya had not smiled as much, or laughed, and hugged and kissed, and overtime her envy had waned, and Rhaenys had just been _Rhaenys._ Frustrating, and maddening, and lovely, and soft, and sweet. Rhaenys had been the one to remind her to smile. To dress her wounds, and knead the knots and aches from her back.

Rhaenys was as big a part of her as Vhaegar. Mayhaps even bigger, mayhaps even more vital.

Aegon was her brother and her king, but Rhaenys was her _heart_.

_And Rhaenys..._

"They lie," she hisses, to the few guards that linger in the room, and she sees one of them start at the sudden break in the silence.

"These Dornish _lie_ ," she repeats, louder again, angrier. She sees a few of the guards hold tighter to the weapons, for they've seen Visenya level armies with her wrath.

  
_Good_ , she thinks, anger building and burning inside her. _Let all men be afraid._

She smiles then, but not like Rhaenys. Visenya's smile is chilling and cold.

  
_Valar Morghulis_ , she thinks.

  
All the Dornish would.


	6. I Looked My Demons in the Eye

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 11/06. Stannis Baratheon-- "I Looked My Demons in the Eye."

His parents die when he is three-and-ten and he never smiles again.

His brothers joke that he never smiled at all, before, but that's not true.

He smiled when his mother kissed him goodnight, pulling the furs up to his chest, smoothing his hair back from his face. She'd lean down, and press her forehead to his, and her long, dark hair would fall like a curtain around them both. She smelled like salt, and sea, and warmth, and she'd say " _Smile_ , _my son. You're the only one with my smile_."

Her smile doesn't exist any more.

He is three-and-ten when his parents die, and he does not shed a tear.

Renly screams, and screams, and screams, for days on end. He screams for mother, and father, and screams until he's hoarse. Even Robert locks himself away and and cries when he thinks no one can see him, or hear him. But in his rooms at night, he can hear Robert's angry shouting, his choked sobs.

But he doesn't shed a tear. He can't. He feels as though he is empty inside, as though a part of him has simply disappeared. He _tries_ to cry, but there is _nothing_ inside him. He is cold, and empty, and silent. He'd been a shadow before, but he retreats further into that darkness now, hiding himself away, because he feels less than a person, _less than human_ , and he cannot cry, no matter how much he wants.

He never cries any more.

He is three-and-ten when he watches the waves and the rocks rip the _Windproud_ to pieces and he never prays again.

Because how had _prayed_ when the first swells began to overtake he ship, how he had _prayed_ and _begged_ the gods to quell the storm. _Mother, Father, Maiden, Crone, Warrior, Smith, Stranger_. He'd prayed to them all, one by one, and _still_ the ship is destroyed, and _still_ his parents are dead.

He doesn't pray to the gods anymore. And he never will again. What use are gods if they cannot help when they are needed the most? What use are gods if they let parents die and children suffer? What use are gods if they do nothing, _nothing_ , when they are prayed to? When their supplicants beg?

He will not waste his time on useless gods anymore.  
He is three-and-ten when his parents die, and not a day goes by that he doesn't think about their deaths. The crackle of fire, an axe through wood, the wind, the rain, the sea-- he sees their _Windproud_ in everything, hears the ship ripped to pieces and his mother and father with it.

He is three-and-ten when his parents died, but it is not them he thinks of when he stares deep into the heart of the flames each night, as snow falls endlessly around them.

It is Shireen.

She will be younger than three-and-ten when her father dies.


	7. Gentle Mother, Font of Mercy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 11/07. Elia Martell-- "Gentle Mother, Font of Mercy"

Rhaegar calls their daughter Rhaenys, and Elia furrows her brow at the name.No woman with Martell blood should _ever_ be a _Rhaenys._

Elia loves her daughter still. Loves her from the crown of her silky black hair, so like her own, to the soles of her tiny, soft, little feet. She loves her soft gurgles, her tiny sighs. She loves the way she suckles at her breast, the feel of her in her arms, the scent of her milky breath when she rocks her to sleep... but Elia cannot bring herself to call her daughter _Rhaenys_. 

She cannot tell Rhaegar that it is an ill-omened name, that _Rhaenys_ _Targaryens_ all seem to meet tragic ends. That _Rhaenys Targaryens_ have no place in Dorne, and the daughter of Princess Elia Martell should have a place in Dorne.

The babe is her print, her miniature, a Martell through-and-through. Even at a month old, there is something of Oberyn in the shape of her eyes, something of Doran in the shape of her lips. Her skin is precisely the same shade of warm brown as Elia's, and she even _smells_ of Dorne. Of home.

She cannot be a _Rhaenys_. She should be a Meria, or a Loreza. A Nymeria, mayhaps, or even an Aliandra. A proud Dornish name, for a sweet Dornish babe.

But Rhaegar names her _Rhaenys_ , and it doesn't make sense. He tells her about the prophecy, and the three heads of the dragon, but then shouldn't their firsts born be _Visenya_?

He names the babe _Rhaenys_ , without consulting Elia, without so much as asking her for her thoughts. She is near unconscious after the birth, and Westerosi men are not like Dornishmen. They do not defer to their wives in the matter of names; they do not defer to their wives for anything.

Prince Rhaegar makes the decision, and Prince Rhaegar names their daughter, and when Elia regains her strength, and has her babe placed in her arms, and learns that she is called _Rhaenys_ , she fights against the grimace that threatens to overtake her face.

Because _Rhaenys_ was laughed out of Dorne, and beaten by Dorne, and died tragically in Dorne, and Elia could not stand it if her sweet babe were to meet the same fate.

Her sweet babe, her sweet daughter, her _heir_. Because even if her fickle goodfather, and her senseless husband will not name their first born as heir, even if she should be _by rights_ , the babe is Elia's heir, a Princess of Dorne, no matter what.

And no Princess of Dorne should ever be bowed, and bent, and broken the way the first Rhaenys Targaryen was.

No Princess of Dorne should ever meet such a tragic end.

Rhaegar might have called the babe Rhaenys, but Elia will ensure her fate is not the same.

She will ensure it, or she will die trying.


	8. Ashes, Ashes, We All Fall Down

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 11/08. Rhaella Targaryen-- "Ashes, Ashes, We All Fall Down."

They tell her that her son is dead in the black of night. They tell her quietly, in her rooms in the Maidenvault. They sit her down, and hold her hands between their, and they whisper it to her.

_We are sorry, Your Grace. Prince Rhaegar... he fell_.

And at first, she doesn't understand.

Rhaegar has fallen plenty of times. Fallen right in, in these very rooms, as he struggled to take his first steps. Fallen in the practice yard at one-and-ten, when he was tall and gangly and barely able to swing a sword. Fallen, running the halls of the Keep.

But he always got back up.

Stood up again, with grim determination, and did everything better.

Even when she lost her babes, those sweet princes and princesses her arms ached to hold, Rhaegar would burrow into her bed, and kiss her brow and tell her that _next time, next time she'd give him a sister_.

Her son believed in next times. Her son never fell without getting up again. She doesn't understand.

Even when she hears Aerys raging, and screaming, screaming at Elia about Dornish betrayal, screaming, and screaming about the rebels, screaming and screaming, about burning them all, she _still_ doesn't understand, because _Rhaegar never just fell_.

Rhaegar would have stood up again, would have stood tall, and would have fought again, and _won_.

Because that is what her son does.

Her son, who came screaming into this world as so much of his family died around him. Her son, who'd press his hands to her belly and whisper to the babe that it had to _live_ , _live this time, for me, and mother. Live because there should be three_.

Her son, who'd gathered her into his arms before he donned his armor and said, _I promise you, Mother. I will end this, and we will make changes. For you, and me, and Viserys._

Her son made her a promise, and he son doesn't just _fall_ , but Aerys is screaming, and Elia's face is cold, and hard, and guarded, and her maids are telling her that they are to leave for Dragonstone, and _oh_.

It hits her, all at once, and _oh_.

Queen Rhaella Targaryen falls to her knees and weeps for her son, her first born, the first thing she'd ever truly and really loved. She weeps for her baby, her Viserys, her sweet boy, she weeps for the brother she once knew, and the husband she wishes she'd never had. She weeps for the new life, growing inside her, the one she's sure will die too.

Queen Rhaella Targaryen falls and weeps. Like Rhaegar, she does not get up again.


	9. The Beginning of the End

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 11/09. Lyanna Stark-- "The Beginning of the End."
> 
> If all goes as planned, the next two weeks of November: Drabble Every Day will be a series of one-shots that chronicle Robert's Rebellion, through the eyes of different characters. It starts with Lyanna's crowning, and will end with Aemon on the Wall finding out about the end of the war. Obviously, there have been liberties taken with some of the canon and ships.
> 
> This is the first of the installments.

Later, the singers will call this the moment that started a war that ripped a kingdom apart and brought a dynasty to its knees.

Lyanna never did spare much time for singers.

Too many embellishments, her father said. Too many untruths, too many misconceptions.

Her father, as he was in so many other things, was right.

The singers will tell of how she blushed gracefully, how her grey eyes sparkled with joy. They will sing of how the Dragon Prince gazed at her lovely face, and dark tresses, besotted by her rare Northern beauty. They will say that the Dragon Prince made her weep with a song, plucked from the silken strings of his silver harp.

The singer will speak of forbidden love; of a Prince's longing, and a young girl's folly. The crueler ones will sing of a Prince's lust, and a young girl's misfortune.

None of them will get it right.

The Prince rides up to her and dips his lance in front of her and lays the laurel in her lap. And just like that, she is Queen of Love and Beauty, with a wreath of winter roses for her crown.

The roses are as blue as Robert's eyes, and to the touch they are as cold as the glare Brandon gives her, when he hisses _"What did you do, Lyanna_?"

The Prince doesn't spare her a second glace after her gives her the flowers. They are not a gift of love. They are a reminder. A warning. They are cold in her hands and they say, so loudly, she's surprised that no one else can hear, _I know your secrets, Lyanna Stark. You owe me_.

Anyone, _anyone_ should have known that had the Prince wanted to love her, he would have done so in secret. He would have summoned her from her bed in the middle of the night, and presented her with a single blue rose, stolen from the crown, and he would have said _"For the lone rose of Winterfell_."

The Prince doesn't do that, because the Prince does not love her. Robert does not do that, because Robert only _thinks_ he loves her.

Ned doesn't do that, because Ned is too honorable to steal, to staid to break into the tent and steal a rose from the crown. Benjen doesn't do it because he is too young.

  
_Brandon_ presents her the lone rose, and laughs with her, tucking her hair away from her face, reminding her of how beautiful she is, even as he makes eyes at the Dayne woman, even though he is promised to another beautiful Southron girl. Even though he was promised to Lyanna first, promised when their mother presented her to him and bade him take care of his infant sister.

Promises, on promises, on promises, but the singers will only sing of her promise to Robert Baratheon, one she had never made herself, and one he would not keep to her.

They do not sing of the promise Benjen swore to her, when he lent her the armor, nor the promise she swore to Howland to protect him.

They do not sing of Brandon's promise to _love her best, love her always_.

They do not sing of the promise she made the Prince swear, _Do not tell them, Your Grace, please._

They do not tell of the promise she makes. _When you have need of me, Your Grace, I will come._

They sing of the crown of blue roses, the one she clutches, even to the end, a reminder of all the promises broken and kept, and they never get the song right.

They sing of a woman so beautiful she won a crown and ripped a kingdom apart. They sing of a Prince whose love signaled the end of his family's reign.

No one is bothered that the song isn't right.


	10. Fate Misnamed

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 11/10. Arthur Dayne-- "Fate Misnamed."

Men tell him that he is lucky to be the Prince's closest friend, his most trusted confidant.

Some days, it does not feel like luck.

It did not feel like luck when they were younger, and  Rhaegar roused him from his slumber at all hours, demanding they ride for Summerhall.

It does not feel like luck when Elia almost dies birthing Rhaenys, and Rhaegar's only concern is for the three children he must have.

It does not feel like luck when Rhaegar urges his horse past his wife to crown Lyanna Stark.

He is not blind to the looks that Connington gives him, envious and angry, and cold. _Come_ , he wants to say, some nights, as he watches Rhaegar pour over old scrolls, as he watches him scribble long missives to a Great Uncle on the Wall. _Take my place. Relieve me of this burden_.

He is of the Kingsguard, but the King he guards is mad, and the Prince who is his closest friend is not far behind.

  
_Do you believe in fate_ , Rhaegar asks him often, and each and every time he says _No_.

  
_No_ , because fate is fickle and cruel. _No,_ because fate has brought men great and small to ruin _. No_ , because Rhaegar is his _friend_ , and what friend lets a man descend into obsession?

But Rhaegar does not listen. Rhaegar tells him of prophecies, and a three-headed dragon, and a war for the dawn. But _he_ is the Sword of the Morning, and Targaryens have perished in flame _,_ and _fate_ has not been on their side _._

__Connigton glares at him, whenever Rhaegar requests a private audience and Arthur wants to tell him _Come. Come, and tell him too. Come and tell him this is madness and folly._

__When Rhaegar summons him to his chambers, after Aegon is born, after Elia has sent him away from Dragonstone, and says _mayhaps I have been wrong, old friend_ , and his heart soars because _finally_ , _finally_ he sees.

But Rhaegar looks at him an asks what the sun and a dragon have in common, and when Arthur does not answer, Rhaegar hisses _fire_.

_How can his be the song of ice and fire when he is pure fire made flesh, old friend?_

Arthur does not answer, cannot answer, not when he knows that gleam in Rhaegar's eye, not when he's seen the same gleam in Aerys's. _Come, Connington. Come. Come take my place_.

Rhaegar tells him they are to ride, but not for Summerhall.

It is madness, and folly. The Isle of Faces is a thing of legend.

But it is _fate_ that drives Rhaegar, and _fate_ that calls him there _,_ and _fate_ that is more important now.

  
_Come, Connington_ , Arthur thinks. _Come do what I cannot_.

He rides beside his Prince, with Gerold and with Oswell, the best of his brothers.

They ride to fate, Rhaegar tells them.

Arthur will remember that.


	11. Comes Like a Thief

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 11/11. Brandon Stark-- "Comes Like a Thief."

He is to be married in four days.

They are just three days ride from Riverrun, now, and even the party that is furthest back will make it to the great Riverlands castle by evenfall of of the third day.

He will be married in four days.

His bride is a true Southron beauty; she is slender, and shapely, with hair like fire and wine, and eyes as blue as the Summer Sea.

In four day's time, he will stand in a Sept and pledge to love and protect her, and only her, for all the rest of his days.

He will be married in four days, but he is plagued by a pair of violet eyes, and inky hair, a husky laugh, and a sultry voice asking him whether honor or love were more appealing.

He will be married in four days, but he is haunted by a pair of grey eyes, precisely the same shade as his, filled with melancholy and anger. Grey eyes that have refused to meet his, grey eyes that have been cast down and filled with tears more days than he can count. He is plagued by the memory of a high-pitched giggle, and a sweet smile, and a soft-voice begging him to delay, delay, _delay_.

She begs him not to marry. She begs him to run away with her, run far from Winterfell, to some place where they are not Starks and have no care for honor. She begs him to run away with her, to some place where they do not have to honor their betrothals, promises that were made without consulting them.

  
_Take me away, brother_ , she begs. _Take me away, please._

He tells her that he cannot bring that kind of dishonor to father, to the family, with only the slightest twinge of guilt when those violet eyes fill his vision, when Barbrey's voice whispers in his ear.

What does he know of honor? Honor is best spent in a wild tumble, with a pair of supple legs wrapped about his waist, and soft lips locked with his.

What does he know of honor, when he knows the _honorable_ thing would be to protect his sister, no matter the cost?

He is to be married in four days, and his sister rides far behind him, though she's spent her life trying to out-race him, though she'd barely left his side when they made a similar journey to Harrenhal, though she's barely left his side for the last _fifteen years_.

But she stays well away from him now, and she will not look at him, and there are violet eyes laughing at him, and blue eyes waiting for him, and grey eyes loving and hating him by turns.

  
_Save me_ , those grey eyes had begged him, as they left Winterfell together for the last time. _Save me, brother_.

  
_Touch me_ , the violet ones had whispered in the shadowy corners of a gargantuan castle. _Here now, come, lover._

  
_Protect me_ , the blue ones sing, calling out to him to ride swifter. _I will be your wife and bear you sons trueborn and strong_.

But his sister is more than stolen touches, and sons he does not yet want. She should be more important, _is_ more important. They are wolves together, and she feels more right in his arms than anyone else-- she fits there, has had a place there for fifteen years, she _belongs_ there.

And if he cannot _save_ her, if he leaves her to be miserable, if he must watch his sister cry as he marries this woman, whom he does not know, not as well as he knows his sister, he will hate himself forever. Whether her tears are for him, or for herself, or for them all-- he will not let her shed them. He cannot.

He does.

With just four days until he is married, he gets the news that his sister has disappeared. Disappeared from her tent at night, the men say. Disappeared with out a trace, taken by the Prince, who slipped in swift as a shadow and plucked the rose of Winterfell from her bed.

  
_She is not a rose_ , he thinks, when he hears the tale, but his head is swimming, and his blood is roaring in his ears. _She is a wolf, like me, she is a wolf, and I left her_. His heart pounds, and he bares his teeth in a growl, wolf's blood high and raging.

She is _his_ sister. _His_ wolf, not some rose to be plucked and stolen in the night.

  
_Save me, brother_ , she whispers, and her sweet voice is in every gust of wind, in every gurgle of the river. _Save me, brother, save me._

He did not do it right the first time. He will not fail her again.

He is to be married in four days, but he wastes no time in mounting his horse, in turning, turning, turning, and riding hard and fast for King's Landing.

He will be there in four day's time. He will save Lyanna in four day's time.


	12. Look for Me in the Storm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 11/12. Rhaella Targaryen-- "Look for Me in the Storm."

Her cousin used to tell her that he could smell a storm coming.

He told her that it smelled like salt, and cold; like greyness, and wind.

She didn't understand how any of those things had a scent, at least not one to be distinct enough for a man's nose to notice.

But her cousin is the Lord of Storm's End, and she assumes that if anyone should know what a storm smells like, it should be him.

Whenever he came to court, he would remind her to take care on her afternoon walks through the garden, lest she get caught in the downpour. The first time he'd done it, she hadn't listened to him, and her favorite gown had been ruined, the raindrops falling so hard and so furious it had utterly ruined the silvery silk, and ripped pearls right from the bodice.

She'd begged him to teach her, begged him to let her know all the secrets of nature too. She'd needed _some_ comfort then, something to ease the hurts of her marriage and her dead babes. And he had smiled, his bright blue eyes crinkling at the corners, and told her to just breathe. _Breathe, and feel_.

But if she breathed too deeply, she could smell Aerys's breath on her skin, and if she felt too deeply, she would feel all her losses too keenly.

She'd experienced her first snow falls with him at her side. He'd breathe in deeply, and smile as though he knew all the secrets to the universe. He'd stick out his tongue, and gather snowflakes there, and every time, he'd tell her how long it would snow, whether it would melt away as soon as it hit the ground, or whether there would be enough to to run about it come morning. And every time he'd be right.

When she stuck her tongue out, she hadn't tasted anything. No matter how many snowflakes she'd gathered on her tongue, she was never sure of what she tasted.

She'd envied him his sureness. She envied the way he never doubted himself, the way he just seemed to _know_ things. She envied him his smiles, and his love, and his three strong sons.

She envied him, and she loved him, her brave cousin who protected her from storms, and ran with her in the snows.

And when he'd died-- _Did you not smell the storm, cousin_? She had asked, as she wept for him in the Sept in front of the alter of the Warrior and the Stranger. _Why were you on that ship_?

For her brother, she knew. He had sailed to the Free Cities at the behest of her brother, to search for a bride for her son, deaf to her pleas to let Rhaegar find love on his own. But Aerys had decided-- if he hadn't gotten to marry for love, Rhaegar would not get to either.

She had tried after. She had tried so many times, to walk the gardens, and _breathe_ and _feel_ , but these days all she breathed in were the flames that were consuming the King, and all she _felt_ was emptiness and loss.

Her cousin had perished in a storm, and with him had perished her ability to know when storms were coming.

Except when the boy rides through King's Landing shouting for Rhaegar to come out and die.

Except when the boy rides to Aegon's High Hill and shouts for Rhaegar to come out, for Rhaegar to come die, for Rhaegar to answer for his crimes.

She wants to rush outside and clasp a hand over his mouth, the way she had done when she'd heard Viserys swear for the first time.

But she is frozen where she is, she cannot breathe, cannot move, cannot blink.

The chill starts at the base of her spine, and runs up her back before taking over her body.

The very air is different now, and she is cold, so cold, _so cold_.

She can hear the guards pulling their swords outside her door, can hear the Goldcloaks answering his shouts outside.

And from somewhere, she can hear Aerys's mad cackle.

She does not breathe. She does not feel.

But she can tell a storm is coming.


	13. Regrets Burned into My Skin

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 11/13. Rickard Stark-- "Regrets Burned into My Skin"

  
_Where did I go wrong, Lyarra_?

He  asks himself the question over and over as he makes the journey to King's Landing, with just a small retinue of men from the North, the words that came with the raven burned into his mind's eye.

 _You are summoned to King's Landing to answer for the crimes of your heir, Brandon Stark, under penalty of death._

His son, his heir, his firstborn. Brash, and wild, and over-proud in a way he had never been.

His son, his heir, his firstborn, locked in a dungeon under the Red Keep for crimes against the crown.

His son, his heir, his first born, sentenced to die unless he rode to save him.

He remembers the day of Brandon's birth so clearly-- a man does not forget the birth of a child born in the heart of winter. How he had come into the world screaming, announcing his presence for all of the North to hear. How Lyarra had laughed, _laughed,_ as she presented their son to him, kissing the babe's brow, declaring him a _King of Winter_ , holding her son close.

  
_Here is our heir_ , she had said, always _our_ never _his_ , but _theirs,_ together. Their son, their wild boy who wanted for nothing and was as bold as brass. Their son, their firstborn, who sat a horse better than either one of them, who would some day be an able lord; stern, but fair, jovial, but focused.

  
_Come answer for his crimes. Penalty of death_.

And his daughter, his only daughter, his lovely, sharp, willful daughter, Lyarra's little namesake, gone without a trace.

His daughter, with his long face, and Lyarra's sweet smile. His baby girl who had been born in a brief spring, who'd come out as loud as Brandon, who'd been Brandon's shadow ever since.

  
_She is yours_ , Lyarra had whispered to Brandon, placing the small babe in his arms, and Brandon had rejoiced in his sister. Brandon loved her fiercely.

And Brandon rode for her.

_Where did I go wrong, Lyarra?_

It is madness. It is all madness.

Shouldn't he be the father enraged and wrathful, burning kingdoms in his wake? Is it not _his_ daughter that is missing, taken, _stolen_ by the Mad King's son? What crime has his son committed? His son fought for _honor_ ; his sister's honor, their family's honor. What crime is that?

But he is summoned to answer for crimes, for _Brandon's_ crimes, but Brandon has done no wrong.

_Was it me_? He wonders, spurring his horse, faster, faster, aching to save his son. _Did I dream too much?_

Southron marriages, the likes of which the North had never seen. Southron marriages to extend the power of his house. His heir to the Tullys, his spare to the Vale, and his prize, his daughter, the She-Wolf of Winterfell to the Stormlands.

Was it too much? Should he have heeded Brandon's cool gaze when he betrothal was arranged, his passionate, wild son suddenly dour and stoic? Should he have given in to Lyanna's weeping, her pleas to end the betrothal to Robert? Should he have called Eddard home sooner? Should he even have sent him away at all.

"What have I done?" he whispers to the trees, but he is too far from the North, too far from _his_ gods, and the trees make no reply.

  
_I sent them South_ , he thinks wildly. _I sent them away from our gods_. _Forgive me, Lyarra_.

He wishes then that he'd simply married Brandon to the Ryswell girl. That he'd encouraged Ned to wed a Royce. Lyanna... Lyanna should have been able to _choose_ , and _gods_ , his heart aches for what he has done to his children.

He has crimes to answer for, but they are not Brandon's, nor are they Lyanna's. They are of his own design, his own short-sighted ambitions. What did they need of the South? The North had served them well for eons, and his children were of the North. True Northmen, true _wolves_ , and wolves were not meant for Southron cages.  
   
He makes up his mind then to fight for them. To fight to free his son, and take his daughter back, to break the betrothals and take his children back home to Winterfell where they belonged. He would sit with Brandon for years yet, and Eddard, and Lyanna, and Benjen, and tell them stories of their mother, and he'd let them grow and laugh and choose whomever they wanted to marry. He will fight for it. He will fight for them. Though well past forty, he is still a powerful swordsman, and Ice has never yet failed a Stark.

But then Aerys, _Mad Aerys_ , he remembers too late, names _fire_ as his champion, and what is ice when faced with fire, and Brandon is screaming, hoarsely screaming, his face going red and purple, and gods _it hurts_. _Brandon, Lyanna, Eddard, Benjen._

_Gods, Lyarra, what have I done?_


	14. Euphoria

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 11/14. Petyr Baelish--"Euphoria."

  
_Brandon Stark is dead_. 

The smallfolk of the Fingers whisper it behind hands and from the corners of their mouths, as though saying it outright would bring the mad dragon's wrath upon them. 

  
_Brandon Stark is dead_ ,  _killed along with his father by Mad Aerys_. 

 

The news spreads like wildfire, from tavern to tavern, sheep to sheep, until all of the Fingers are abuzz with the news _._  


  
_Shame that_ , the smallfolk say.  _He was for Lord Tully's eldest._  


  
_A good man_ , they say, and the bravest amongst them murmur that  _someone_ ,  _somehow_ ,  _should kill that Mad King_. 

But Brandon Stark is dead, and Petyr Baelish has never loved a man so as he loves Aerys Targaryen in those moments.  _The King is an instrument of the gods_ , Petyr decides, near drunk on happiness.  _The gods work through him, for what else is this if not an act of fate?_  


Petyr Baelish was not a man for gods, but who is he to argue if they are to show him their favor?

 

He feels near  _princely_  every time he hears the news, every time someone whispers about Brandon Stark. 

Brandon Stark is dead, and Catelyn's had will be his at last, as it was always meant to be. Hoster Tully would see that now, had to see that now, the Starks were attainted traitors now, and gods knew Hoster would not let such a stain besmirch his reputation, nor the reputation of his pure, pristine, perfect daughter. 

  
_They are traitors and I am a Lord, a leal vassal_. 

Brandon Stark is dead. 

He feels half aflame when he sits to pen the letter to his dear Cat, his life, his  _love_. He feels empowered, he feels strong, he feels _happiness_ , the likes of which he had not known, not since he was a boy sent to foster with the great Lord Tully _._  


Petyr Baelish is  _happy_  as he sits, as he writes, 

_My dearest Cat,_

_I am so deeply sorry for your loss..._


	15. So it Begins

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 11/15. Ned Stark-- "So it Begins."

Robert's angry bellowing from the next room echoes throughout the Eyrie, his voice booming so loudly that it seems to shake the very mountains themselves.

Ned wishes he would just be quiet.  Ned wishes the whole world would just _be quiet_.

At Winterfell, he'd often wished that Brandon and Lyanna would be quiet _,_ that they'd cease the squabbling, their shouting. Always shrieking, always shouting, always laughing.

All he had wanted was quiet. He'd learned to appreciate the silences of the North. The late-night lulls where naught would be heard but the sporadic baying of wolves, the quiet _hum_ of life. He appreciated the quiet of early mornings, the sound of the sunrise.

He appreciated the quiet, mundane things of everyday life.

But now Robert is bellowing, and his mind is filled with thought of Brandon and his father. He cannot imagined they died quietly. He cannot see them dying stoically.

His mind turns Brandon's raucous shouting, so like Robert's, and yet, so different, to anguished screams. He cannot help but see his brother, his big brother, screaming, face turning red, purple, black, strangled as he tried to save his father. He does not _want_ to see his father, burning, _burning_ inside the iron armor he and Brandon and Benjen had gifted him for his last name day.

Armor from his sons, armor that did nothing to protect him in the end. Armor that did not hold against fire, against madness, against death.

His father and brother are dead. Jon told him in the kindest way he knew, told him as a father would his son, but as much as he loves the man Jon is _not_ his father. But his father is dead, and his mother is dead, and his brother is dead _._

And Robert won't stop yelling.

Ned wishes he would stop. What does Robert know of this pain? His parents died in a shipwreck, yes, but his brothers are _alive,_ blissfully, wonderfully _alive_ , and Ned's  brother is dead, and Ned's sister is missing, and how _dare_ Robert yell.

Jon tells him that the Mad King has burned his father alive, and strangled his brother. Jon tells him that the Mad King demands his head, his and Robert's, a token of fealty from Jon, and insurance that none will search for Lyanna.

And for a moment, a moment that lasts longer than Ned would like to admit, he wants to tell Jon to do it. He wants to tell Jon that he'll gladly bare his neck for the headman's block, because he cannot fathom living when his father and brother are dead. He cannot fathom going on when it looks likely that Lyanna will die too.

He wants to tell Jon to take his head, to send it to Aerys. _Let him mount it next to Brandon's_ he wants to beg. _Let me be with my brother again_.

But Robert is shouting, and Jon tells him _be strong, my son_ , and _gods_ no one will ever call him son again.

He is alone now, alone save for Benjen, and as much as he would like to join Brandon and father, he _cannot_ , **_will not_** , leave Benjen. He cannot, _**will not**_ stop. Not when Lyanna might still be alive. Not when he might be able to save her.

He goes to Robert and Jon then, and marvels as Robert falls silent at the sight of him. Robert stops yelling, stops shouting, stops cursing the gods and stares at Ned with simple trust. His blue eyes are wide and unguarded.

"Brother," Robert starts, and Ned's heart aches for Brandon and Lyanna. It aches for Benjen.

"We find her," Ned says, quiet, but firm. 'We find her."

Jon nods, standing taller and stronger than he's looked in years, and Robert practically glows with purpose.

"We find her," Ned says, yet again. "We find her, and we bring her home."

Jon nods. Robert beams.

"We find her," Ned says, voice gathering volume and strength, and _gods I almost sound like Brandon_. "We find her, and we bring her home, and we kill them all."

He is the Stark in Winterfell. He is the _Lord_ of Winterfell. And winter is coming.

Winter is here.  
  
Jon calls his banners. And so it begins.


	16. Shame

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 11/16. Jon Arryn-- "Shame."

He does not like Hoster Tully.

He does not like the way the man's blue eyes gaze at them coolly, shrewdly calculating and appraising.

His blue eyes are not Robert's. Robert's are warm, and kind, laughter usually bubbling just beneath the surface.

Hoster Tully's are cold.

"You want armies," he says slowly, and Jon does not have to look at Robert to know that he is gritting his teeth. He does not have to look at Ned to know that his eyes are hard and narrowed.

"You think of armies. But my daughter has just lost her beloved betrothed. I should be more concerned with her welfare than your war."

_This man has lost a father and brother_ , Jon wants to shout. _And the other is only trying to find his betrothed_.

Jon wants to slam his fist on Tully's desk, wants to tell the man to forget his armies. Wants to tell him that the Vale and the North, and the Stormlands will be enough. Wants to tell him that they'll burn the Riverlands to the ground for his folly, but the words do not come. They _need_ him.

"I will marry Lady Catelyn in Brandon's place," Ned says so quietly, Jon wonders if he made it up. But Hoster Tully's eyes widen, and he leans back in his seat, stroking his beard thoughtfully.

"You are Lord of Winterfell now. It would fulfill the agreement I made with your father."

  
_Another dead man_ , Jon almost screams _. Have some respect for the boy, for his losses_ he wants to beg. He wants to protect this boy, this quiet one, this one who is more like him than Robert. He loves them both so fiercely, so strongly, but there's something about Ned that warms him more, something more fragile, something he wants to keep safe.

But Ned just nods, stoically, not a whit of emotion about his face. He nods and says, "Consider it done."

"Fulfilling a bargain does not merit armies," Tully says casually, and Jon wants to leap across the table and drive his blade through the man's black heart. He knows then that Hoster Tully is playing for a crown, for power. Were it not for the fact that Robert would likely behead the man right then and there, Tully might have demanded Robert wed Lady Catelyn in place of Lyanna.

"What is it you want, my lord?" he says through gritted teeth, the courtesy tasting wrong on his tongue.

"I have two daughters," Tully says simply, and fixes Jon with a stare.

Robert misunderstands. "I mean to find Lyanna and wed _her_ ," he says sharply. "I will not put her aside just for _\--"_

But Tully holds up his hand to silence him, eyes still fixed on Jon.

"I have no intention of asking you to set aside the Lady Lyanna, Lord Robert," Tully says. "Indeed, I pray you find her, and quickly."

  
_Then give us your armies_ , Jon wants to shout. _Stop this nonsense, this prevaricating, and march with us_.

"State your meaning plainly then," Robert says, disgruntled.

"He means me," Jon says with a calmness he does not feel. "He means to offer his other daughter to me."

Tully keeps his gaze on his face, unwavering, unafraid.

  
_What father would wed his maiden daughter to an old man_? Jon wonders. _What father would be so desperate for power?_

  
_"_ Lord Robert, Lord Eddard," Tully says, and Jon watches Ned start at his new title, and feels a pang all over again. "Would you excuse us? Lord Jon and I have a private matter to discuss."

  
_Stay_ , Jon almost says _. Do not give in to this man_. He wants to shout it. To gather up his boys and leave, but he bites his tongue and nods at them.

"We'll be a moment, lads," he tells them, and they stand and leave, but Ned gives him a lingering look before he shuts the door, and Jon Arryn places Hoster Tully on the list of men he'd like to see dead, just behind Aerys and Rhaegar Targaryen.

He stares at Hoster Tully, stares at the man, refuses to speak first, refuses to give in any more, but Tully gazes calmly back, not a hint of nervousness about his face.

"My second daughter," he says finally, and only then does a look of discomfort color his features. "She is no longer a maiden."

  
_Ah_ , Jon thinks, questions answered.

  
_"_ She has proven fertile," Tully continues, face now contorted in disgust.

"A babe?" Jon asks, momentarily surprised, momentarily pleased. _I would give it my name_ , he thinks. _I would need not lay with the girl_. _No one would ever know_.

  
_"_ No," Tully says coldly, and _now_ Jon feels his stomach roil with disgust. Not with the girl, he does not care that she is not a maiden, does not care that she had fallen pregnant for some other man.

It is the man whose house boasts the words _Family. Duty. Honor_. who disgusts him, for Hoster Tully cares not about family, or duty, or honor. He sells his daughter, both his daughters, angling for a crown, angling for power.

He is an old man, and Lysa Tully is a young girl who has done nothing, _nothing_ , to deserve her father's scorn.

  
_If I had a daughter who lived_ , Jon thinks bitterly, _I wouldn't care. I wouldn't care_.

Why is it that Hoster Tully has three children and that he has none?

  
_I would have done better_ , he thinks. _I would have done better by my daughters_.

His mind goes to Robert and Ned, and his resolve hardens. _I have to do right by my sons._

"I will wed her," he says, and Hoster gives him a chilling smile.

"After everything is done, and Lyanna is returned..."

"No," Tully interrupts, voice hard again. "You and Lord Eddard will wed the girls now. Before."

"What?" Jon asks, perplexed. "Eddard's father and brother have just been murdered. It would not be proper--"

"It would not be proper for Catelyn to lose another betrothed, or for Lysa to remain unmarried."

"If we lose, they will be better off unmarried. You will have--"

"All the more reason for you not to lose."

"If we do, they will be killed," Jon says wildly, hoping to make the man see sense.

"If you marry them, they will be killed; if you don't marry them, they will still be killed for my part in this. Rickard and Brandon Stark have taught us that."

"Eddard's father and brother, you mean," Jon says, seething now, unable to hold back his rage. "Your daughter's previous betrothed, you might recall."

Hoster Tully does not blink, does not back down.

"You want armies. This is my price. You and Lord Eddard will wed Lysa and Catelyn now, and then we will march. Now. Not after."

  
_Don't do it,_ his conscience whispers, his honor. _Don't compromise your honor for a man who has none. She is sixteen, and she deserves more_.

But Ned has lost a father, and a brother, and Jon cannot let him lose his sister. He will not let Robert lose the woman he loves.

  
_I will treat her well_ , Jon swears to himself _. She might... she might be happy, with a son. Or a daughter. One child. One child would do._

"We will do it," Jon agrees, because there is no turning back now. There is no turning away from whatever this moment will bring.

Hoster Tully shakes his hand, and Jon suppresses his disgust and anger.

A bride to win a war doesn't seem such a great price.

Years later, _years_ later, it will.


	17. All Your Yesteryears are Buried Deep

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 11/17. Benjen Stark--"All Your Yesteryears are Buried Deep."

They tell him that he is the Stark in Winterfell.

They tell him there must always be one.

It is a hollow title—one meant to make him feel better that he could not go to watch Brandon get married. He could not ride at Brandon's side, at _Lyanna's_ side, through the Riverlands, because he was the Stark in Winterfell.

He should have been at her side. He should have been next to her. He was the only one who knew—who knew the things the Prince had said to her at Harrenhal, who knew her doubts, her fears, her deep unhappiness—he was the only one who knew _her_.

He is the only one who could have helped her.

They tell him again, that he must be the Stark in Winterfell, when his father rides for King's Landing to fight for Brandon, even though he tells him that he should have been there. The he could have kept Lyanna safe, that he should go now, because they are _family_. But his father bids him stay, and so he does, pacing Winterfell’s grey walls night and day, waiting to see his father and his brother galloping back with Lyanna in tow.

But his father dies, and his brother dies, and his sister is nowhere to be found, and he remains the Stark in Winterfell, alone with his grief, and anger, and bitter regrets. 

He saddles a horse, but the Maester stops him with a sad sigh. He is the Stark in Winterfell and he cannot go to the Vale to plot and plan with Ned and Robert, even when he shouts that his place is with his brother, that they _need_ each other now. No one understands. Lyanna would understand, but Lyanna is missing, and Brandon is gone, and Ned is riding home, only to marshal the men and leave him again. And now-- now he cannot march south to fight the Mad King and the Prince, to avenge his brother and save his sister.

“Let me go,” he pleads with Ned, his last brother, his last friend, his _Lord_. “Let me go fight for her, for them.”

But Ned tells him he must stay, tells him that _he_ is the Stark in Winterfell, that Ned needs him home, but it’s too much, it’s all too much. He cannot stand to be so far away, so helpless, while another one of his siblings is in danger.

"They are mine too," he shrieks at Ned, his voice cracking and breaking. "I want to fight for them too."

Ned's eyes fill with pity and Benjen hates him for it. He does not want pity, he wants to _fight_. He wants Ned to extend a hand and tell him that they will destroy the Targaryens together. He wants Mad Aerys dead, and he wants the Prince dead, and he wants them all destroyed.

He wants his sister again. He wants to be seven years old and playing at swords in the godswood, laughing and spinning until he’s dizzy, and falling to the floor. He wants to lay back in the leaves and whisper secrets with Lyanna, to hold her hand, or feel her fingers in his hair when she tells him a story, about brave Danny Flint, and about the Night’s King.

He wants to ride on Brandon's shoulders, and have him show him how to hold a bow, _steady, steady now, Ben_. He wants to hear Brandon cheer for him when he hits the target, wants to hear Brandon laugh when Lyanna outraces him ahorse. He wants to see Ned’s bemused look when Lyanna steals his sword.

He wants to _fight_ for them. He wants to fight the way Brandon did, fiercely, swiftly. He wants to ride to King's Landing and scream for the Mad King to come out and die for his crimes against House Stark.

He wants to demand Lyanna's return, wants her delivered right to him and Ned, and he never wants to leave her side again.

Not even when she says _just lend me the armor, Ben_. Not even when she says, _the Prince wants to see me, Ben_.

"You're the _Lord_ ," he tells Ned. "You should stay. Winterfell can't afford to lose another Lord."

The North has lost Rickard and Brandon, it cannot lose Ned too, but the crack in Benjen's voice and the tears in his eyes reveal the truth-- _he_ cannot lose another brother. He cannot lose the last member of his family.

But Ned clasps him on the shoulder, and tells him that there must always be a Stark in Winterfell, and he rides off South with their men.

He does not watch Ned marry, does not get to bear their standard, does not get to be fierce in battle. He does not get to _help_ , he does not get his _sister_.

He is the Stark in Winterfell, but he decides there and then, as he paces the rookery anxiously awaiting word _, any_ word—if he does not get Lyanna back… he will never be the Stark in Winterfell again.


	18. Sins of the Father

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 11/18. Rhaegar Targaryen--"Sins of the Father."

All men know that fate is a fickle thing.

What one man claims as fated, another will claim as doom. What one man prophesies, another will decry. Fate will eat the uncertain, the unsure alive every time.

But Rhaegar Targaryen has never been unsure.

He was not unsure when he married Elia Martell. He was well versed in history—he knew the peace and prosperity the union of Daeron II and Mariah Martell had brought the kingdom. Had it not been for his father’s follies, theirs would have been a reign of peace. Rhaegar thinks the same of himself and Elia, thinks they will be able to right the wrongs his father has done, put the realm aright. He still believes he is the Prince that was Promised then, when he marries her, and she feels like fate, she feels like his destiny come at last.

But his father grows more destructive than Rhaegar ever thought he could be, and as Aerys sees threats in every shadow, Rhaegar realizes he was wrong. _He_ cannot be the Prince that was Promised. The dragon has three heads, and his mother has only borne himself and Viserys, and that is not nearly enough. There must be three, is all he knows, but he and his brother are only two, and his parents were only two, so there _must_ be more.

Fate tells him so.

But then Elia births a daughter, and he realizes that though he is not the Prince, the Prince will come from him. He will have three children, three dragons, three powerful dragons fated to save Westeros—to save the world.

That the first is a girl is fitting. He names her _Rhaenys_ , for his mother, though he knows it should be _Visenya_.  He thinks to change it, after. He is a Prince, after all, and he can change his child’s name, but his mother delights in the child, and smiles so brightly at him, that he does not have the heart to change anything.

Besides, the girl is already _fated_ for greatness. What is a name, against fate? And although Rhaenys is more _Martell_ than Dragon Queen, she is delightfully smart and bright for her age, and Rhaegar knows, _knows_ she will grow to be a wise ruler.

But his father grows in madness, and Rhaenys is so young, and Elia is too ill to lay with, and _there must be three_.

They lay together just once, before Harrenhal. _Just once_. After Rhaegar has returned from Summerhall, after Elia is recovered. She enters his embrace dutifully, though there is no passion, no fire to her. Her kisses are lukewarm, her hands barely touching him, and Rhaegar does not tell her how lovely she looks in the glow of the red star that gleams just outside of her window. He does not think the sentiment would be welcomed.

They lay together just once, but it is enough. She falls pregnant again, discovers it as they journey back from Harrenhal, and one of the Maesters who examines her says the babe will surely be a boy.

_Fate_ , Rhaegar thinks. An Aegon to his Rhaenys, the Prince Who Was Promised, at last. But Elia barely speaks to him these days, barely looks at him, and he feels pangs of guilt every time. He should have explained better, should have explained more clearly.

He is not in love with Lyanna Stark.

He appreciates the girl’s spirit—he appreciates her bravery. He appreciates her willingness to don armor and fight. He admires the cold glare she gives him when he approaches her. The girl makes him promise not to reveal her secret, and he in turn gets her to swear her loyalty to him—gets her to swear that she owes him for not bringing her straight away to his father.

He gives her the laurel, not because he loves her, not because he thinks she’s beautiful, but because she fought for honor, and perhaps if she had been born a man—she would have been fated to win.

But then Elia stops speaking to him, and Arthur glares at him, and the Starks and the Baratheons stare at him coldly, and he has to wonder if this is what his father feels all the time. It hurts to think like that.

It hurts to be ignored by his wife, guilted by his mother _have you forgotten how many times your father shamed me_ , she had shrilled upon his return. And no matter his pleas, she had not listened to him, even when he told her that Elia was expecting again, she would not listen—just sobbed and sobbed and sobbed.

He tries to explain that she was not fated to have more babes, but she slaps him. The one, and only time she slaps him, and walks away.

Elia births Aegon not long after, and for a moment, he is deliriously happy. If Rhaenys is Elia’s child, Aegon is his—silver haired, with purple eyes, conceived under a red star, born at Dragonstone. Here at last is the promised prince. He rejoices in his son, rejoices in his daughter, stays at Elia’s bedside until she is awake, until she is conscious, and he holds her hand and she lets him.

Until the Maester tells him that she can never bear a child again, and she wrenches her hand away and turns her back to him.

Rhaegar wants to hit the man. _There must be three_ , he wants to say. Wants to tell him that it’s _fated_ , that he must be mistaken, but he can hear Elia’s quiet sobs that are in sync to Aegon’s little breaths, but even then Rhaegar is not unsure.

Aegon might be the Prince That Was Promised, but his children’s song is one of fire _and_ ice. And none of his children are ice. Even then, even with that realization, he is not unsure.

The gods will know.

He gathers Arthur and the best men of his father’s guard—Oswell and Gerold—and bids them ride for the Isle of Faces.

_The gods will grant us an answer_ , he tells them, sure that he’ll have his answer. _We ride to fate_.

He spies Lyanna Stark riding with a large party of Northmen just a day away from the Isle—just a few miles from Harrenhal, and Rhaegar _knows_ it is fate.

There is a scowl on her face, and she wears breeches instead of a riding gown, and her braid is tossed messily over one shoulder, and Rhaegar imagines that this is what Visenya looked like, astride her dragon.

_Here_ , at last is the ice to his fire, the final piece of the puzzle. Here, _fated_ , is the reason why he’d named Elia’s first child _Rhaenys—_ for his mother, for the babe’s delicate features, for Elia’s sweet charm.

_Lyanna_ was the warrior maiden, the fierce one. She would provide the ice, and the third head. She would provide Visenya.

He goes to her at night, when all her camp is asleep. With his dark cloak, and quiet steps, even the sentinels at guard do not notice him.

He goes to her, finds her still dressed in her breeches, and reminds her that she once promised him to come if he ever had need of her.

After just a moment’s hesitation—she comes.

And everything changes.

_It was fated_ , he reminds himself, as he rides to the Trident, armored more heavily than he’s ever been. He rides alone, at the head of the host, though he knows that Leywn, and Barristan, and Jonothor are not far behind.

He rides to fate.

He does not want to kill Robert Baratheon. His mother had whispered that they were cousins, and thought he’d barely ever met the man, he does not want to kill him. Lyanna said that Robert had loved her, as best that Robert could, and so he does not want to kill him. A favor to Lyanna. But Lyanna stops caring about life and death, except for the life growing in her after Brandon dies, and though he does not want to kill Robert, he knows he must. He must kill him to save the kingdom, to heal his realm, to protect his children—Rhaenys, Aegon, and the unborn one Lyanna sobs to at night. He will kill Robert, and put down the rebels, and by the time he returns to Lyanna, his third dragon will be there to greet him.

He’ll ride home victorious. He’ll take care of his father, and he will take the throne. He will raise his children, content in the knowledge that they are _fated_ to save the realm someday.

But he means to heal it—to heal _this_ first.

He rides to fate.

The battle rings around him, the song of steel, and blood. Of whinnying horses, and shouting men. The sound of last gasps, and sobs, and death, and even _then_ Rhaegar is not unsure. _Lyanna_ , he thinks. _The third head_.

He looks for Robert.

He finds him.

Robert’s hammer strikes his chest, and Rhaegar gasps for breath, gasps Lyanna’s name, suddenly unsure.

 

 


	19. Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 11/19. The Tower of Joy-- "Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night."

The babe comes early.

The girl starts shrieking just before dawn, howling in agony. Any light they'd get is stifled by the pouring rain-- a rarity in the Red Mountains of Dorne-- and the girl's labor begins on the blackest of mornings.

An ill-omen.

Still, she groans, and cries, and grasps the swell of her stomach. She curses endlessly-- herself, the King, the babe's father-- she curses, and groans, and screams. And she begs.   
  
She begs for her father, her brother, her mother. She begs the dead for comfort. She begs the living for forgiveness.   
  
She howls and she begs and she cries, the force of her screams is near enough to crumble the mountains themselves. She labors, and sobs, and shrieks, and she does so alone.   
  
The three men about her, he three guards-- though they are not _hers_ \-- do not go to her. One keeps away out of duty-- his Prince said to guard only-- the other, out of resentment-- what did this girl have that his Princess didn't?-- the third... out of respect. A woman's labor, was a woman's trial, and this strong girl did not need anyone to witness her pains.

In the Red Mountains of Dorne, in a tower the Prince had called The Tower of Joy, a girl, a woman now, gives birth to a babe all alone, as the rains pour down around them. She screams, and cries, and sobs _Mother, please_ , with no one there to _really_ hear.

The sun is finally breaking through when the babe starts to crown, and the red sands of Dorne, soaked by the rains, look eerily like blood that stains the mother. Wet, and red, and wet, and red.

Only the sands do not scream, and the mother does, and does, and _does_ ,

Until at last one of her guards goes to her and helps guide the babe from her body. He lifts the child up gently, and cleans it the best he can.

His white cloak is already stained with her blood, and so he wraps the child in it. The falling star that is his sigil looks as as though it is bleeding as much as the mother is by the time he lays the child in her arms.

The babe is a boy, with a head full of dark hair, a twin to hers, with a pale face, but a healthy cry. She drinks in everything about the child-- his dark hair, his full lips, his little fingers and tiny toes. and she sobs, and sobs, and sobs.

And bleeds, and bleeds, and bleeds.

The guards are uneasy now, and one writes to his sister, while another rides to a neighboring village, each one looking for a Maester or midwife, because the girl will not stop bleeding. Her skin is aflame, and her eyes are glassy, and her arms are almost too weak to hold her son.

_Almost_.

She uses all her strength to hold the babe, to rock him in her arms, to whisper songs to him.

She tells the babe she is burning like her father, that there are moments where she cannot breathe just like her brother.

And her guards worry.

And she bleeds, and burns, and struggles for breath.

Until at last, at long last, she hears a familiar voice, and the sound of a familiar sword, swinging sure and true.

_Eddard_ , she calls, even as she bleeds, and burns, and barely breathes.

_Eddard_.

Her guards fight. She bleeds, and pleads, and sighs.   
  
They all die.


	20. A Virtuous Man

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 11/20. Jaime Lannister-- "A Virtuous Man."

It is not an easy thing, to kill a king.

Jaime Lannister knows that well enough.

An enemy in battle is easy to fell. There are no second thoughts, no doubts. An enemy charges and he is cut down. Simple.

A king though, the man he serves, the man who named him to one of the most elite sects in the kingdom, he is not so easy to kill.

Even when he is screaming _burn them all_ , even then it is not so easy to kill a king.

When Rhaegar dies, and Robert rides for King’s Landing, when Tywin Lannister’s forces pour in, not to help, but to destroy, and the king screams, _Let him be king over charred bones and cooked meat. Let him be king of ashes,_ Jaime knows he _has_ to kill him.

But it is not so easy to watch him die. It is not so easy to quell the tide of memories, the good ones, not just the bad, as his blade slides between the wretched man’s ribs and pierces his heart. It is not so easy watching him bleed out, listening to the screams floating in from all of King’s Landing, listening to moans of agony, listening to sobs, and pleas.

It is not so easy, not even when he sits on the throne, more out of shock and weariness than anything, and watches the dead man on the floor. Because he is afraid. Because though he knows the king is dead, _what if he rises_.

What if he rises and burns them all?

So he sits, and stares, and watches the pool of blood under the dead man thickening and congealing, and making sure that he stays dead.

It is not so easy when Eddard Stark strides into the throne room, looking much older than his nineteen years, and glares at him so coldly, he feels ice flood his veins. No, it is not so easy then, when the man glares at him with hatred and disgust, glares at him as though he were the vilest creature in all the seven kingdoms.

_But I saved us_ , he thinks, wildly. _I saved us_.

The words are on the tip of his tongue, the desire to tell to tell everything overwhelming, but the words die on his lips the longer Eddard Stark glares at him. It will not matter. Stark will not understand.

And when Robert comes striding in, limping still from a wound, and roars _killed by his guard, eh_? Jaime knows no one will ever believe him. No one will ever listen.

He is the villain, even though Baratheon and Stark started this war to save a woman. Even though _they_ are responsible for all the death, all the destruction, he will be the villain.

What is one life, one person, against the lives of millions? They went to war for a woman and killed millions, and he killed a king and saved millions and _he_ is the villain.

How are they admired? How are they revered? How are they heroes, _honorable_ , lauded and praised by all? One woman, one _girl_ , causes the deaths of millions of men and women. He killed the king to end it and _he_ is the oath breaker, the kingslayer, the blackest criminal in Westeros.

_You broke oaths, too_ , he wants to scream. Oaths of fealty, of loyalty, but they are not oath breaks. They rode to save their sister, they rode to save their betrothed. They ripped apart a kingdom for a woman they loved, and singers will praise them for the rest of time.

_I have a sister_ _I love, too_ , he wants to shout. _A lover I’d do anything to protect_.

But it doesn’t matter, not when the broken and bloodied bodies of Princess Elia and her babes are wrapped in Lannister crimson and placed in the throne room.

Not when he hears the Prince’s voice, clear as day, clasping his shoulder, promising change. _Look after Elia and the children, while I am away_.

Not when he has broken another promise, not when he has failed another man, not when the men have another reason to hate him. Not when he has another reason to hate himself.

Not when Baratheon hisses _dragon spawn_ and Stark looks as though he might kill them both. But Robert is his friend, and Jaime is nothing, so he gives him one last, long, lingering glare.

No, it is not such an easy thing to kill a king.


	21. For if We Are Destroyed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 11/21. Robert Baratheon-- "For if We Are Destroyed."

He kills the Prince every night.

Even before the Trident, even before any battle, from the moment he heard Lyanna was gone… he’s killed the Prince every night.

At first he dreamed of pulling his head back by his silver hair and slitting his pale throat, watching the blood pour out of him before he gathered Lyanna up and took her home to Storm’s End where she belonged.

The longer Lyanna was gone, the more violent the dreams became: beheading, disembowelment, castration, dismemberment. He wanted to destroy the man, rip him limb by limb, make him suffer for anything he had done to Lyanna.

The reality had been so much better.

The spike of his war hammer driving through the bastard’s chest, right through his cold, black heart. He’d watched his ribs crack and cave in, pulled his heart out on the tip of that spike.

He relives it every night, the reality the fantasy. He kills the Prince every night, but he still does not have Lyanna back.

Mayhaps it is his punishment, he thinks, uneasily, for when he doesn’t dream of the Prince, he dreams of Elia and the babes. _They should have been spared_ , he thinks. Ned had not forgiven him for his callousness. Lyanna certainly would not either. She might hate Rhaegar, but she would never hold a crime against a babe.

_What if she hates me too_? 

The thought makes him uncomfortable, his chest constricting in ways he does not like. _They’ll have to forgive me_ , he thinks. _We all make mistakes. And they love me._

He is King now, so they tell him, but it does not feel like an honor, not when Ned had glared at him so coldly, not when his bride is still missing. Jon tells him that he is the king, and calls him _Your Grace_ , and men and women bow to him _,_ but what good is a crown and a throne when his friend, _his brother_ , won’t speak to him, and his love, _his wife_ isn’t by his side.

_Ned will bring her to me_ , he thinks. _Ned will bring her home_.

The reality is so much worse.

Ned rides back to King’s Landing and looks as though he has aged thirty years. He doesn’t glare at him, he doesn’t seem to have the energy to. The man who had called him nothing but _Your Grace_ cruelly and woodenly before he’d ridden off, collapses into his arms, hugs him tightly and fiercely, the way Jon had grabbed both of them to tell them that Rickard and Brandon had been murdered.

_She’s dead_ , he chokes out after a fashion. _I was too late_.

The words echo, over and over in his head, but nothing makes senses.

_She’s dead_.

But she can’t be dead. She was meant to be his wife. She was just six-and-ten, and he loved her. She was meant to be his wife, and Ned his brother in truth. He fought a war _for her_. He fought a war to get her back.

He killed the Prince, drove his hammer through his chest, killed him every night in his dreams.

But hadn’t he dreamt of marrying Lyanna too? Hadn’t he dreamt of how she’d look in a gown of grey and white, edged with black and gold, walking towards him in the Sept at Storm’s End? Hadn’t he dreamed of wedding her at Winterfell, beneath her heart tree, with snowflakes glistening in her dark hair?

He’d dreamed of her too, and she can’t be dead. Not when Rhaegar is dead, not when he killed the silver bastard for her, _for her_.

Ned does not stay long. He must return home, to his wife, his son, _Lyanna’s bones_.

But that does not sound right. Lyanna should be alive, so that they could have a son who would be like a brother to Ned’s. A little boy with inky hair and bright blue eyes. Or mayhaps a little boy with dark hair and Lyanna’s lovely grey eyes.

A _son_. His son.

That’s all he wants.

But Lyanna is dead, and Ned is leaving him, and Ned has a son, and a wife, and Robert envies him. He envies him his wife, his son. He envies him Lyanna’s bones, even. He wants to go to Winterfell too, to rest with Lyanna’s bones.

That night he drowns himself in wine, hoping not to dream. He does not want to see the Prince’s blood rush out of him, not when it hasn’t made a difference, not when Lyanna still isn’t his wife, not when Lyanna is gone forever.

He drowns himself in wine, hoping not to see Lyanna walking towards him in her grey and white gown, smiling softly, for as sweet as it is, it hurts too much.

He drowns himself in wine and still he dreams.

Every night he kills the Prince, over, and over again. And every night he wishes it were the other way around.


	22. The Truth

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 11/22. Old Nan-- "The Truth."

He brings a babe home and tells his wife that it is his bastard.

He tells her that he fathered the child while at war, and the babe’s grey eyes are enough to attest the fact that he is a Stark.

But she knows _,_ Old Nan _knows_ because she raised them all, that the child is not Eddard’s. Because she knows the Stark children.

Because even though the babe’s eyes are shaped like Eddard’s, and even though the babe’s frown is just as serious, she _knows_ Lyanna’s face when she sees it.

Lord Eddard introduces the babe as his own, he calls the babe _his son_ , but she knows. _Old Nan knows_ , that is Lyanna’s son. It is in the cast of his lips, the curl of his hair, the shape of his mouth—the babe is a Stark, but he is not Eddard’s.

She says nothing though, not to Eddard and not to his Southron bride, not to Catelyn and her red haired son. She keeps quiet and she knows—the babe Eddard brings home after Robert’s war is not his, but Lyanna’s. The babe Eddard calls _son_ , is not his but Lyanna’s. Even when the Southron bride rages—as she has no right to—even as she rages and tries to banish the boy, Eddard claims him as his son, but she _knows_ , Old Nan _knows._

She holds Lyanna’s son in her arms and rocks him to sleep—never Catelyn’s , never the Tully girl’s because she does not trust an old woman’s arms, because she thinks she will drop her red haired Robb—Old Nan rocks Jon and Hodor hums _Hodor_ and it is enough.

Eddard may lie to his wife, and his wife might ignore the child, but Old Nan knows, _she knows_ , Jon Snow is not Eddard’s son.


	23. Staring into Open Flame

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 11/23. Maester Aemon-- "Staring into Open Flame."
> 
> That's all, folks! Here endeth the Robert's Rebellion Series of drabbles. I think I'll post them all in another fic (since I've written quite a few earlier than NDED). NDED will continue with other drabbles now.

The Night's Watch takes no part.

They cannot ride to battle to aide old liege lords, they cannot pledge their swords to a cause, and so instead they whisper to each other, about Robert, about Rhaegar, about mad kings and usurpers. Brother turns against brother, and the whole Wall waits for news.

First Ranger Mormont comes and finds him when it's done.

_I'm sorry_ , he says simply, because there is nothing else to say. What do you say to a man who has lost all of his remaining family, first to a chain, and then to a black cloak, and finally to death, to murder.

_I'm sorry_ , Mormont says, but Aemon hasn't forgotten that Mormont is a Northman and that he'd been one of the men to whisper that Rhaegar deserved to die for taking Lyanna.

No one else comes though. None of the others remember what his name was, and those that might are too busy celebrating the death of the mad king, or mourning the loss of their prince.

No one else comes, and he re-reads the letter sent from Pycelle, written in Pycelle's own hand. He reads it and hopes, somehow, that he's read it wrong, but each time he's reminded anew of Rhaegar's death. Of Aerys's. The babes, the sweet babes Rhaegar had been so proud of. Of _Rhaella's,_ even, though she'd been away from the war, dying in childbed.

The letter mentions at Viserys and Daenerys are wanted, _to be put to death too_ , he thinks bitterly, and any castle found harboring them would be dealt with.

_The Night's Watch_ _takes no part,_ he reminds himself, but writes to the Maester at Eastwatch to ask if there's been any new ships in, though he knows they'd never come North, not so long as Stark lives, but the Night's Watch takes no part, and  _he_ could protect them. 

_Will they even remember that I am here?_

But Viserys and Daenerys do not know him, because he put aside his name all those years ago.

_I left_ _my family for a chain and a black cloak. I left my brother to protect him_.

Would that he had strength at arms to ride to King's Landing and put a sword through Robert's black heart, to end his line as he and Stark had ended the Targaryens.

Would that he could rip Tywin Lannister's heart from his body, would that he could get vengeance for Elia, and Rhaenys, and Aegon.

_Not all the Targaryens are gone_ , he wants to scream, wants to rage, wants his family. _I am still here_.

Would that he could go back in time and counsel Aerys, to be his voice of reason. _Had he not been at the wall_...

But the Night's Watch takes no part, and he slumps back, defeated. 

He is just Maester Aemon, not Targaryen, and he has no strength at arms. He is an old man, losing his sight, and the only family he has to him now are brothers-- brothers all in black.

He had a brother that wore red and black once, a brother who kept his hair short and laughed at his stories about Oldtown. He sees him so vividly, suddenly, as though he were right there in the solar, laughing and reaching out, reaching to hug him, begging him not to go to the Wall, but to stay on as Grand Maester. To stay with him.

_I dreamed you were alive, Egg_ , he thinks sadly, but he is not. None of them are.

Just like that, all of the dragons are dead, and he is alone in this world.


	24. Quiet Strength

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 11/24. Rhaella Targaryen x Joanna Lannister-- "Quiet Strength."

She finds Joanna right where she knew she would. For all her friend’s fierceness, for all her black moods and wraths, when she was really and truly upset Joanna would simply hide in her rooms, lay in her bed, with the covers pulled up over her, as though the heavy layers of fabric could shut out the world.

She pulls the covers away from her friend’s face, and strokes her golden hair, so thick and heavy unlike her fine silvery hair. She strokes her hair and hums, the way she will do for Rhaegar when he has a bad dream.

“Does he hate me so?” Her friend asks quietly, voice muffled by the pillows. “Does he hate me so?”

Rhaella sighs, and stills her hands in Joanna’s hair.

“It would be easier if he hated you,” she tells her, and turns Joanna’s face to hers. “If he hated you, he would ignore you.”

“Am I supposed to believe this is _love_?” Joanna spats, and Rhaella almost smiles. _There_ is here fierce lioness.

“Aerys is not good with love,” Rhaella says softly, thinking of her brother as a little boy, one who was careless with his toys. She took the utmost care with hers, but Aerys—his favorite toys would soon be broken, and then cast aside in favor of something new. Nothing ever lasted long if Aerys loved it.

“I see that,” Joanna says, voice dripping with disdain. She sits up now, as though her anger gives her strength.

“It is worse because he loved you,” Rhaella tells her, ever blunt as is her way. She is not the kind to lie to a friend, not the kind to lie or coat her words for anyone. She is quieter than her brother, true, but she is still a _dragon,_ a Targaryen Queen, and she needs not fear being bold.

“He did not love me,” Joanna begins, but Rhaella holds up her hand to stop her.

“He did. I know my brother. And I know when he loves. He loved you, and Tywin, and Steffon.”

“Loved?” Joanna asks, skeptical, but Rhaella is firm.

“Loved,” she says, quietly. “And love is an ugly thing when it is rejected.”

Joanna says nothing, just looks at Rhaella with those expressive green eyes, and then she laughs.

“I thought to be Queen,” Joanna says, still laughing softy. “I thought to be Queen, and so I sought his favor, and I did not think—“

“You did not think a spoiled Prince would grow to love you as he did,” Rhaella says, taking Joanna’s hands between her own. “But he did.”

“But then your father—“

“Said that he would marry me,” Rhaella finishes for her. “And you married Tywin. And there’s nothing Aerys hates so much as being denied what he wants and watching someone else have it.”

“So he hates us both,” Joanna spits, but Rhaella shakes her head.

“He loves you both. He loves you both, but he’s spoiled, and petulant, and doesn’t understand why he couldn’t have things the way he wanted. He loves you, but loathes that things aren’t the way _he_ wants them.”

“So he will never let me leave,” Joanna says, eyes widening at the realization. “He’ll keep me here to make me as miserable as I have made him.”

“He will let you leave if I command it,” Rhaella says, her jaw set in determination, her purple eyes hard.

Joanna looks skeptical again.

“Command it? Rhaella, he listens to no one, and Tywin—“

“He will let you leave, if I dismiss you.”

“Dismiss me?” Joanna says, surprised. “How can you dismiss me?”

“The same way I’ve dismissed the others,” Rhaella says, tightening her grip on Joanna’s hand.

“You called them _whores_ ,” Joanna hisses, but her eyes widen in realization.

“Yes,” Rhaella says simply. “I pretended I hated them as much as he did, and I gave them a purse of dragons and—“

Joanna cuts her off with a hug.

“No one knows how brave you are,” Joanna whispers into her hair, and tears come to her eyes unbidden. She will miss Joanna. With Loreza gone, she will lose her final friend in King's Landing. It seems a small sacrifice to keep her safe.

“You are my lady,” Rhaella whispers to her. “You are my friend.”

*

The courts whisper the next day about Joanna’s dismissal, about the way Queen Rhaella does not meet Joanna’s eyes.

They whisper about the way the Queen glared at the King, and said, the boldest they’d seen her in years.

“I will not have _him_ , turning _my_ ladies into whores.”

 

 

 

 


	25. Open My Eyes, That I May See

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 11/25. Arya Stark--"Open My Eyes, That I May See."

When she was blind, she could see them most clearly.

She could see her father, with his face like hers. She could see him laugh, and smile, and frown. She could see the favorite face he made—the one where he tried to be angry with her, but his lips would twitch and his jaw would shake with the effort not to laugh.

They take her sight, but she seems them _so clearly_ she could be there with them.

She could be with Robb, riding astride his shoulders through the halls of home, her fingers tugging at his red curls, begging him to run faster. She could see his face, the way his eyes would light up with laughter at something Jon or Theon said. She could see the blush that stained his cheeks, the one that clashed awfully with his hair, whenever he snuck a little too much wine at Theon’s urging.

She can _see_ her brother, and she can see her home.

She could see her mother, her _real_ mother, not the thing Nymeria found. She could see her mother’s smile, her mother’s stern frown. She could see her mother’s delicate, soft hands reaching to smooth her hair, to fix her dress, to wipe smudges of dirt from her face.

She sees them so closely, she might be able to touch them, but whenever she tries, her fist close in on naught but air, and hot tears roll down her face.

_Stupid_ , she thinks to herself, and she knows she has to stop seeing. She has to stop reaching.

But she can’t.

Not when she could see Jon Snow’s smile, and hear his laugh. Not when she could see him, smiling at her, smiling at her as no one else ever did. Not when she could see him, and feel at home, feel safe, feel loved, feel like she wasn’t _no one_ , for just a moment more.


	26. Writ in Blood

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 11/26. Deria Martell--"Writ in Blood."

For thirteen years, these dragons had not learned.

For thirteen years they’d come with fire, and with blood, and still they refused to learn.

Men lost hands, and the blood that spilled turned the Dornish sands even redder, and _still_ these Dragons refused to speak the truth: The Dornish are Unbent, Unbowed, and Unbroken.

For the last three years, the Dragon had been wrathful, had burned every castle, every keep, every small town that dared to build. Dorne had lost a good many men, and a good many women. Babes were burned, and lives were destroyed, and _gods_ , we’re they men or were they savages?

Their people were tired. They were tired of fighting, tired of burning, tired of the acrid stench of smoke and smoldering flesh. They wanted to build, and thrive. To plant orange trees, and lemon trees.

“We must end this,” Prince Nymor had said to his councilors, his voice reedy and week, every syllable plagued with pain. “We cannot continue to burn.”

“You mean to submit?” Lord Uller, had asked incredulously, but Prince Nymor had smiled, his mother’s smile, the one that had passed to Deria as well.

“Unbent, Unbowed, Unbroken,” he said, quietly, pulling a parchment from his robes. “With this, Deria will bring them their Fire and Blood.”

And so she goes, though some had argued that Prince Nymor should have sent a man, an old seasoned warrior to treat with the King. She goes, though her handmaidens warn her to keep her temper in check. She goes with the hopes of Dorne on her shoulders, the weight of the promises she made. She goes, with the skull of a dragon, cleaned and polished in a box. She goes as a Princess, and she _will_ remain as such.

_Unbent, Unbowed, Unbroken_ , she repeats to herself, clutching the parchment tucked safely into her robes.

Her arrival in King’s Landing is not well received.

It is a dark and dirty city, where the stench of burning is worse here, coupled with that of nightsoil and animal. The city guards leer at her, one going so far as to pull at the side of her robes, before she slices his palm with her blade

“Touch me again,” she said, “and I assure you, you’ll never feel the urge to again.”

By the time she is presented to King Aegon—though her tongue itches to call him _Lord_ Aegon—she is thoroughly sick of King’s Landing.

“Your Grace,” she says, curtsying politely, though the people in the court snicker at her accent. “I am Princess Deria Nymeros Martell, heir to Sunspear. I bring you greetings from my father, _Prince_ Nymor Martell, ruling Prince of Dorne.”

“You mean _Lady_ Deria, and _Lord_ Nymor,” Queen Visenya spits from beside King Aegon’s grand throne. Lord Orys Baratheon glowers beside her, his one remaining hand clenched into a fist.

“I believe I know my own title,” Deria says mildly, offering the Queen a smile. “It is Princess. I have been called it all my life.”

“Is that what the other whores in your brothel call you?” Lord Oakheart shouts from the side of the hall. “Your Grace, return her to the meanest one in the city at once. I cannot fathom that any man would want her, but surely some would be that desperate.”

Deria turns and smiles at him radiantly. “Your Lordship is kind to offer,” she says, smile never leaving her face. “But I would not want to take your mother’s place.”

The man makes as if to move toward her, but Queen Visenya roars for quiet.

“Do you know whose court you are in?” She asks, her voice colored with hatred. “You will not speak as such in the court of King Aegon, the Conqueror, First of His Name, King of the Andals, the Rhoynar, and the First Men, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms.”

“The Andals and the First Men, I’ll grant you,” Deria says boldly, voice never wavering. “But not the Rhoynar.”

She fixes her gaze on Aegon, whose purple eyes are burning with a quiet rage.

“You are lord of _six_ kingdoms, not seven. Dorne has not submitted. As you might remember.” She sweeps her arm back and her men rush forward to present Meraxes’s skull.

The court gasps as one. Orys Baratheon curses audibly, but Queen Visenya and King Aegon are twin images of quiet rage: jaws clenched, eyes narrowed and cold.

The sight fills Deria with joy.

_Is this how you felt, grandmother_ , she wonders idly, as the court whispers and titters all around her. _Is this how you felt when you pushed that bitch queen back the first time?_

“Let me make our terms plain, Your Grace,” she says, loudly, regally, speaking over the whispers and titters, and the room falls silent at once. “We want peace, the same as you must. You have a kingdom to rule, as do we. Let our _two_ kingdoms be at peace.

The room starts up again, and Orys is shaking his head rapidly at the King.

“No peace without your submission,” he hisses at her. “We will destroy all of you before we settle for this.”

“You have not succeeding in destroying us for thirteen years,” Deria reminds him, shrugging. “Must you lose the other hand as well before the message sinks in?”

He starts toward her, with several other men from the Stormlands and the Reach, all shouting “no peace without submission,” and she is about to pull her own blade when King Aegon stands and shouts for silence.

Everyone freezes where they are—some with the hands still on their swords—and Aegon takes his seat again.

“There you have your answer, _Lady_ Deria,” he says, and the smile on his face is cruel and cold. “You will know the taste of Fire and Blood.”

“I thought you might say that, _Lord_ Aegon _,”_ she says, and yet another wave of outraged whispers breaks out in the room.

She pulls the parchment from her sleeve and walks up to the throne and hands it to him. This close, she can see Queen Visenya’s glare, and the woman looks so angry, Deria fully believes she might kill her then and there.

It is the only time her heart beats a little faster.

But then Aegon breaks the seal of the parchment, and Deria feels her body relax. She has won.

She knows the contents of that letter like she knows her name. She was there when it was written. She was there, in Lord Uller’s dungeon, eyes fixed on the woman on the ground. The woman had been beautiful once. She was a shell of that now.

_How long do you think_ , Deria had asked, as she sharpened her blade _, how long before we have your sister in here? Or your brother? We’ve felled dragons before, we can do it again_.

The woman had kept silent though, had refused. Queen Rhaenys had not been so delicate as she had looked. As always though, Deria’s blade found her mark, and her tongue had only done better.

_How long do you think before we have your son? How long will he last here?_

She had written the letter quickly after that.

King Aegon reads it slowly, and this close, Deria can see his struggle to keep his face impassive, but one hand is clenched into a fist so hard it is dripping blood, bright red rivulets running down his fingers, past his wrist, and staining his cloak.

_There is your fire_ , she thinks triumphantly _. There is your blood_.

She sees his eyes reach the end of the parchment, and go back to the top as though he cannot believe what he has read. She sees Visenya straining to read it alongside him.

She recites the words in her mind as they read. Soon they’ll be as burned into their minds as they are into hers.

_My brother, my king._

_I live, yet I long for death. I do not know where I am held. I do not know how often I am moved. It matters not. Let me die. Let me die, that our son might live. That you and Visenya might live. Give them what they want and I will suffer no longer._

_Please, my brother, my love, my King, for the love you bear me, grant me this._

Aegon stands and descends his throne, eyes fixed on her face, giving her one, long look. She nods, understanding what he is asking.

His jaw clenches and he strides from the throne room and leaves, and Deria smiles, exactly as her grandmother had.  

Queens may bow, and bend, and break.

Dorne would not.


	27. Thank Me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 11/27. Jon Snow x Melisandre-- "Thank Me."

He is most aware of the knife buried in his back.

He does not feel the others, cannot truly see the others, but the knife in his back is burning, burning. It is not the burn of fire, it is the burn of ice, and he wonders if the Others will have claimed him at last.

_Arya_ , he thinks, as he struggles to keep his eyes open, as he struggles not to fall. _I have to save her_.

He pictures her as he had last seen her, brown hair in an untidy braid, clinging to him and desperately trying not to cry, as her mother watched them with pursed lips and a stony glare.

_Don’t forget me, Jon Snow_ , she had whispered, pleaded. _Promise me, Jon._

And of course he had promised. How could he not? She was his little sister, she was a part of him. How could he not promise her anything she wanted?

That’s why he had to go to her now. He’d _promised_ her. He couldn’t let the pain and the cold stop him. _She needs you_.

Ygritte’s face swims before him, her hair like a beacon guiding him home, and he takes two staggering steps, before he falls into her arms.

“Arya,” he murmurs. “You’d like her."

Ygritte hums, to him, and he can feel her hands in his hair, can feel her hands running over his back and his chest. Her hands are so warm, so warm, but she does not kiss him, not like he wants her to.

“Will you save her?” He asks, but Ygritte just hums. “Save her and teach her to shoot a bow like you. She’d like that.”

He can see Arya so clearly, bow clutched tightly in her hand, making shot after shot. He can see his father next to her, laughing, pride gleaming in his eyes. He’d never quite looked at Jon like that. And the few times he had, Lady Catelyn had come along and glared at him until Ned turned away.

“I was not wanted,” he tells Ygritte. He is ashamed at the sting of tears in his eyes, an old wound, still painful after all these years. “Save for you, and Arya, and Robb, I’d never been wanted.”

But he hates himself for saying Robb’s name, for opening another wound more painful than the one in his back. His brother, his _King_.

“I should have gone, shouldn’t I? I should have left then. You would have. You would have gone,” he tells Ygritte, trying to keep his voice steady, but it huts, everything hurts, and even her hands are almost too warm now, he can feel the heat from them radiating against his chest.

“I should have rode to war with Robb. I would have been by his side when he died.”

He thinks he might have liked that, to have died with his brother. He thinks he might have known peace then.

_But then who would save Arya now_ , a voice in his mind whispers, and he struggles to get up, but Ygritte’s insistent hands keep him down.

“Arya,” he says again, delirious now, feeling as though every inch of his skin was on fire. “I have to _save_ her.”

But how can he save her when he can’t tell if he is burning or if he is freezing. How can he save her when Ygritte will not let him go?

_I let her go_ , he thinks, sadly. _I left her. I should have stayed. I should have stayed in those caves_.

Ygritte hums louder, and _oh_.

“I’m dying,” he says, to whomever it is touching him, humming to him. Because Ygritte is dead, and Robb is dead, and _Arya_.

“I have to save her,” he sobs now, skin burning, Ygritte’s and Robb’s faces frowning at him from his mind’s eye. _Kissed by fire_ , _but they weren’t lucky._

“I couldn’t save them _,_ ” he cries, and he can _feel_ Ygritte dying in his arms, can _feel_ the arrows go through him as they had gone through Robb. _They died_.

“I have to save her, _please_ , I _promised her_ ,” he cries, and suddenly he feels as though he has been consumed by fire, can taste smoke in his mouth. He shuts his eyes against the pain, focuses on Robb and Ygritte, and he wants to go with them. He wants to go home.

But _Arya_ is home, and _Arya_ is at Winterfell, and he is the only one left to save her, and he _promised_ her. The wounds in his chest _burn_ , and the one in his back _freezes_ , and then quite suddenly it is done.

Melisandre’s face fills his vision, her hair, and her eyes aglow. She looks otherworldly, she looks triumphant, and she traces a tear on his face, and waves away some of the smoke that fills the room, and she gives him a sad smile.

“I expect you’ll thank me, only after you have your sister, Your Grace.”

 


	28. Your Monster

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 11/28. Visenya Targaryen-- "Your Monster."

 Her son is born on a black night, a cold night.

She screams the entire while, shouts of _monster_ echoing off the castle walls. Her labor is long and hard, her brow drenched in sweat, blood dripping from her body.

_Is this what Rhaenys felt?_ She wonders, and that thought sends another stab of pain through her body. Rhaenys had loved being pregnant, had loved the idea of having a babe. She had sung to her stomach, and cooed to the babe inside of her.

Visenya did no such thing. She had not wanted the babe, had not wanted a child, but Aenys was _weak_. Her sister’s softheartedness and her brother’s softheadedness. She needed a stronger heir, the _realm_ needed a stronger heir.

But the thing inside of her is a monster, she knows, she can tell from the way he moves, from the way he pains her, from the way one of his kicks feels as though it might break her ribs.

She feels him, ripping his way out of her, causing her as much pain as he can. He is a _monster_ , but he is _hers_.

When the babe is finally free of her body, when the babe is finally cleaned, the Maester places him in her arms, and she tries to remember what Rhaenys had looked like as she first held Aenys.

She had smiled, to be sure. Mayhaps she had cried as well, cried with love for her babe as she kissed his brow.

Visenya does not cry, and she does not kiss her babe. She rocks him though, and stares at his large frame, and his crown of silvery hair. She does not love him.

She does not need to. Love is weakness. Aegon and Rhaenys had proved that with Aenys. She will not have a weak son. She will not have a weak heir.

She will _not_ have a weak _King_.


	29. I'll Do What You Choose

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 11/29. Arianne Martell-- "I'll Do What You Choose."

She reads the letter for a third time to be sure.

It is written in her father's own hand, and she closes her eyes, imagining how it must have pained him to pen the words.

The letters are misshapen--a sure sign of a shaking hand-- and the parchment is dotted by tears, the ink smeared in places.

Her father had been in two kinds of pain, writing this.

Quentyn is dead. Burned by a dragon. Burned alive and suffered for three days after.

She reads the paper one more time, to be sure.

But the words stay the same, and the gnawing sensation in the pit of her stomach grows.

She touches her face, but finds no tears, and she is disturbed by the fact that she does not cry. Shouldn't she be crying? Isn't that what sisters do? Her _brother_ is dead. Should she not be on her knees, wailing, and rending her garments, and pulling at her hair? Aero Hotah said her father and Oberyn had done that when they learned of Elia's death. Her father himself had told her that he'd done that at the news of Oberyn's death.

Her brother is dead, _murdered_. Shouldn't she be crying?

She tries to call up her brother's face in her mind's eye, tries to picture his smile, his laugh, but while she can see him, staring sullenly and forever serious, she can recall nothing beyond that.

She cannot recall whispering secrets with him, or fixing his hair the way sisters will oft do. She cannot recall him tugging at her braids, or chastising her for her dress, the way brothers were wont to do.

They hadn't even fought properly as siblings-- fought over treats, or favors, or anything at all. He had not been home enough to fight with her.

And yet... hadn't he been her enemy her whole life? Hadn't she hated him, _hated_ that he seemed to be Father's favorite, while she was shunted aside, lesser and unwanted? Hadn't they fought, in her mind, at least, every time her father proposed to marry her to some greybeard?

Her brother is dead, but he had never been her brother in truth. They honor had gone to Drey, and Garin, her brothers who'd been by her side her entire life. Her brothers who had made her laugh, had made her cry, had soothed her heartbreaks.

It was Drey and Garin whom she could hardly stand to be separated from, not Quentyn.

_Was that on purpose, Father?_ Arianne wonders. _Would it have pained you too much to see another set of close siblings? Would you have seen Elia and Oberyn everywhere?_

Oberyn had fallen apart after his sister's death, his wrath in the aftermath of the sack of King's Landing the thing of legends.

_He would have burned all of Westeros to the ground_ , Arianne recalls, from all the times her Uncle had told her the story, and feels a shiver run down her spine.

_Were you afraid, Father? Were you afraid that should something happen to either one, one of us would be left, dark and dangerous, bitter and ready to burn the word?_

She stares out at the water, searching for answers, waiting for the gods to tell her what to do. An echo of Obara's words come back to her: _All over Dorne, they are asking, what will he do? What will he do to avenge our murdered prince?_

Quentyn is dead. Her brother is dead.

_Gods,_ Arianne prays, surprised to feel tears forming in her eyes, _tell me what I should do._


	30. New Beginnings

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 11/30. Sansa Stark-- "New Beginnings."
> 
> Here endeth November: Drabble Every Day! What an excellent exercise this has been! Some of these drabbles will be expanded on in longer fics, and some will be developed in different ways. Thank you for joining me in this wild ride!

Lord Petyr tells her that the time is coming soon, that soon she will wed Harry, and soon the armies of the Vale will rise for her, and _soon, so soon_ she will go home.

But before that happens, before her armies can come together, before she can wed the dashing Ser Harry, news reaches the Vale of a battle at Winterfell that changes Lord Petyr's plans completely.

Stannis's host has reclaimed Winterfell, trouncing the Bolton hosts in the snows just miles from the castle. There are rumors of the Manderly's turning their cloaks and attacking the Bolton's from within, rumors of a false letter sent to the Wall, rumors that House Karstark has been all but extinguished.  
  
Rumors, rumors, rumors. Petyr does not have so many friends so far North, and nothing is certain, nothing is clear, except this: the Lannisters are falling.

She thinks to ask him to go home, thinks to tell him that Stannis is honorable enough not to deny her her home, but Petyr reminds her that Stannis will not suffer a Lannister's wife to hold anything in her name, and that she is an accused Kingslayer and fugitive beside.

Sansa recoils. It is the first time he has mentioned that since coming to the Vale, the first time he has admitted that everything has not gone according to his plan.

It chills her to her very core.

More chilling still are the next wave of rumors that come to them. That Stannis's army was aided by a host of wolves, led by a monstrous she-wolf... and little girl with a skinny sword, and a pale man, dressed all in black.


End file.
